EndGame: Challenging the Chess Masters

An overview of the history of computer chess, focusing on the matches between IBM's chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue and World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov.
In 1989, IBM hired Deep Thought team members Feng-Hsiung Hsu, Murray Campbell and Thomas Anantharaman to develop a computer that would beat reigning World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. Although Deep Thought lost to Kasparov in 1989, the match led the team to refine its software and add more custom processors. By 1996, it could examine 100 million chess positions per second, or about nine to eleven moves ahead.
That same year, Deep Thought was renamed Deep Blue and met Kasparov for a best-of-six games match. In the first game, Deep Blue made history by defeating Kasparov--marking the first time a current World Chess Champion had ever lost a game to a computer in a tournament setting--but Kasparov bounced back to win the match with a score of 4-2.
After defeating Deep Blue in 1996, Garry Kasparov issued a rematch challenge for the following year. To prepare, the team tested the machine against several Grandmasters, and doubled the performance of the hardware.
A six-game rematch took place in New York in May 1997. Kasparov won the first game but missed an opportunity in the second game and lost. Kasparov never recovered his composure and played defensively for the remainder of the match. In the last game, he made a simple mistake and lost, marking May 11, 1997, as the date on which a World Chess Champion lost a match to a computer.

There have since been two other matches between a computer and a World Chess Champion. Both have ended in a tie.
Created for the Computer History Museum exhibit "Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess". Be sure to check out the online exhibit on computer chess at: www.computerhistory.org/chess

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Computer
• History
• Museum
• Chess
• Kasparov
• Deep
• Blue
• IBM
• Turing

[evertoamicus]

Haha I remember when this happened. Really it's a testament to the human mind that he could even compete against those calculations. The video also makes a good point that a lot of human masters helped develop the software for deep blue so it was like he was playing x number of human players.

[soccerkills]

bobby would have won

[188metalhead881]

A machine that CAN think, that will be a day I don't want to even live in. It's so terrifying.

[imfxxz]

IBM cheated on Kasparov, if they have not done so, they would have accepted Kasparov's will for another game.

[OnlineChessLessons]

Kasparov is one of the best chess players ever but IBM hired a team of 6 very good grandmasters to help design and modify Deep Blue to beat him. Currently, computers are ridiculously strong at chess and they are only getting better. Unfortunately I think it's only a matter of time before chess is mathematically solved.

[dragonheadofthewest]

@evertoamicus you are talking complete bull thats totally untrue what you said and makes no sense, grandmaster had nothing to do with deep blue, he just said they just used brute force aproach.... and for the openings they just used book lines....

[dragonheadofthewest]

@ridewave444 yeah playing computer is mentally tougher because you always think a compüuter is flawless its a psychological burden....

[rookman64]

@amdfanatyk actually there is no perpetual check...look up KingCrusher's video analyzing the final position.

[rookman64]

@ridewave444 actually there is no perpetual check...look up KingCrusher's video analyzing the final position.

[ridewave444]

O.K. Well, he missed perpetual check then That's because he's not perfect. No one is.Otherwise you'd never lose I guess. The more time that goes by the more you realize how incredible Kasparov was to compete against these computers. He's going against many strong minds.

[amdfanatyk]

Deep Blue won because Kasparov collapsed not because the computer was so sophisticated. Kasparov missed perpetual check.