Deep Blue, IBM's supercomputer, defeats chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997
World chess champion Garry Kasparov is seen on a video screen pondering a move against IBM's chess playing computer, Deep Blue, in New York while chess fans look on.
(ADAM NADEL/AP)
The world's greatest human chess player threw a tantrum and cried foul yesterday after being thrashed by a supercomputer.
It took IBM's Deep Blue just 19 moves to defeat world chess champion Garry Kasparov a stunning finale to an epic week-long battle of man versus machine.
Not mollified by his $400,000 loser's share, Kasparov stormed off like a sore loser after resigning. He later accused IBM of unfairly programing the high-speed computer to beat him specifically.
He suggested that Deep Blue, which was supposed to play on its own, was coached during the match.
He stopped short of saying the computer team cheated.
"I suspect there were things in the match that were well beyond my understanding," Kasparov said. "And when a big corporation with unlimited resources would like to do so, there are many ways to achieve the result, and the result was achieved."
IBM team leader C.J. Tan denied the computer was coached. "Once the clock started, it relied on Deep Blue's system itself," he said.
Kasparov's pal, Michael Khodarkovski, blamed Kasparov's graceless exit on a lack of practice he said Kasparov had never lost a match.
Kasparov came close to losing to Anatoly Karpov in a 1984-85 championship match that was suspended without a victory on either side.
The New York Daily News edition May 12, 1997 edition is seen.
(THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Kasparov, 34, considered by some chess experts as the greatest player in the history of the game, last year defeated Deep Blue 4-2.
After losing the opening game of the rematch at the Equitable Center in Manhattan, the computer won the second game and fought Kasparov to draws in the next three.
Then yesterday with a swiftness that stunned the chess world Deep Blue took advantage of Kasparov's clumsy opening moves and placed him in a no-win situation after less than an hour of play.
Unable to find a way out, Kasparov playing the black pieces tipped his king and resigned. He buried his head in his hands and didn't look at IBM's Tan when they shook hands.
The final score was 31/2 points for the computer and 21/2 points for Kasparov.
Kasparov said he "cracked under the pressure."
"I am ashamed," said Kasparov, who would have won $700,000 if he had beaten the computer.
Patrick Wolff, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess," said the world champ "basically cracked."
Gary Kasparov in a chess rematch against Deep Blue, an IBM computer.
(GERALD HERBERT)
Kasparov, playing black, used a standard defense known as the "Caro-Kann," forcing white to sacrifice a piece. But for some reason he botched his seventh move and "he became lost," Wolff said.
"This is not a position he wanted to get into," said Ilya Gurevich, a grand master from Manhattan. "It's a pure calculating position where the computer has a big advantage. The computer's strength is tactics."
The computer Kasparov battled was capable of analyzing 200 million positions per second twice as many positions per second as the IBM model he defeated in Philadelphia last year.
One expert said he was surprised when Kasparov resigned. "It didn't seem lost," said grand master John Fedorowicz of the Bronx, who helped the IBM team prepare its game plan.
At Chess Forum on Thompson St. in Greenwich Village, die-hard chess fans expressed shock at Kasparov's loss.
"This is a historic event," said Mark Wieder, 46, also a computer programer. "The greatest human player of all time lost to a machine."
Chess Forum owner Imad Khachan, 31, said Kasparov was following in the footsteps of other sore losers by suggesting his for didn't play fair.
"This is not uncommon in chess," he said. "When Viktor Korchnoi was playing Karpov in the '70s, Korchnoi made the accusation that the KGB was sending him telepathic messages to destroy his concentration."
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