Kasparov vs. Deep Blue. The Last Match

After that loss, the IBM engineers went back to Yorktown Height, N.Y. to prepare Deep Blue for a re-match. C.J. Tan, Project Director, started by preparing a list of all the things that could be improved. By May 1997 Deep Blue was ready and fit. According to IBM, the new Deep Blue is an RS/6000SP computer with 32 nodes. Each one possesses a new processor P2SC and 8 processors specifically designed to play chess. This means there are more than 256 processors functioning in a parallel situation, capable of calculating 200 million chess positions per second.

If Kasparov can only evaluate some three positions per second, how is it that Deep Blue does not easily win all matches? It is true that Deep Blue is able to see many moves ahead of Kasparov, but this advantage Kasparov compensates by possessing a much more sophisticated evaluation of each position.

The tournament, consisting of 6 matches, couldn't have been tighter. Kasparov started by winning 1 - 0 and Deep Blue won the second match. After three consecutive ties (a half point is assigned to each player when there is a tie) they both had 2.5 points each. Therefore, all was decided in the last match. In a fast and brutal way, Deep Blue beat humanity, al least for the time being, as being the entity that best plays chess on this planet. Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, gave up in the sixth and last match of the tournament, only 19 moves after the beginning, saying: "I lost my desire to fight."

At the Equitable Center in Manhattan , the great masters present to watch the tournament remained perplexed, deep in silence.