Kasparov Bedevils Deep Blue With First Win

Chess world champion Garry Kasparov won the second game of his match with the supercomputer Deep Blue on Sunday in Philadelphia. The score is now tied at 1-1 in the six-game match.

Deep Blue shocked chess fans by defeating Kasparov in the first game Saturday. Kasparov, 32, has been the world’s strongest player since he earned his first world championship title in 1985.

Suddenly, the idea that the world’s greatest chess thinker could be surpassed by a thoughtless machine seemed, well, not unthinkable. Sunday’s result reassured humanity.

Although Kasparov hopes to take the winner’s share ($400,000) of the $500,000 prize fund, contributed by the Assn. for Computing and Machinery, he recognizes that the true stakes are much higher. He is defending imagination and creativity against brute calculating power.

Deep Blue is IBM’s latest example of parallel processing. By linking 256 processors, IBM programmers have created a machine capable of looking at 50 billion chess positions in three minutes. Deep Blue considers every possible move, every possible reply to each move, and all of the possible replies to those moves, to a depth of about 12 levels in an average position. In contrast, a human grandmaster only considers two or three selected moves, but he intuitively senses which are best.

After his loss Saturday, Kasparov left the stage without a word. Sunday’s victory, though, made the charismatic champion willing to speak about his nonhuman opponent.

“To beat this machine, you have to fight really hard, as many hours as it takes,” Kasparov said. Revealing a bit of his strategy, he added: “If you threaten, the machine will counterattack. But if there is no threat, the machine will go about its business and eventually give you an opportunity.”

Kasparov used the Catalan Opening, a quiet system that gave Deep Blue little chance to capitalize on its superiority in calculating. Then he offered a sacrifice of a pawn, relying on the willingness of most computer chess programs to snatch a pawn at the cost of long-range concessions. Deep Blue correctly gave back the pawn to avoid most of the danger, but it fell for Kasparov’s second pawn offer at move 19.

David Levy, the Scottish international master who twice defeated less sophisticated programs in Man vs. Machine matches, explained Kasparov’s strategy succinctly: “Kasparov managed to develop a plan that extended beyond the computer’s horizon. Arguably, the computer didn’t know what was going on.”

For the rest of the game, Deep Blue suffered from irreparable weaknesses on the light squares near its king. It resigned after five hours and 45 minutes. The third game is scheduled at noon Tuesday.

Kasparov predicted: “The rest of the match is going to be tough. The machine does not make many mistakes.”

Here are the moves of Sunday’s game:

Kasparov-Deep Blue No. 2: 1 Nf3 d5 2 d4 e6 3 g3 c5 4 Bg2 Nc6 5 0-0 Nf6 6 c4 dxc4 7 Ne5 Bd7 8 Na3 cxd4 9 Naxc4 Bc5 10 Qb3 0-0 11 Qxb7 Nxe5 12 Nxe5 Rb8 13 Qf3 Bd6 14 Nc6 Bxc6 15 Qxc6 e5 16 Rb1 Rb6 17 Qa4 Qb8 18 Bg5 Be7 19 b4 Bxb4 20 Bxf6 gxf6 21 Qd7 Qc8 22 Qxa7 Rb8 23 Qa4 Bc3 24 Rxb8 Qxb8 25 Be4 Qc7 26 Qa6 Kg7 27 Qd3 Rb8 28 Bxh7 Rb2 29 Be4 Rxa2 30 h4 Qc8 31 Qf3 Ra1 32 Rxa1 Bxa1 33 Qh5 Qh8 34 Qg4+ Kf8 35 Qc8+ Kg7 36 Qg4+ Kf8 37 Bd5 Ke7 38 Bc6 Kf8 39 Bd5 Ke7 40 Qf3 Bc3 41 Bc4 Qc8 42 Qd5 Qe6 43 Qb5 Qd7 44 Qc5+ Qd6 45 Qa7+ Qd7 46 Qa8 Qc7 47 Qa3+ Qd6 48 Qa2 f5 49 Bxf7 e4 50 Bh5 Qf6 51 Qa3+ Kd7 52 Qa7+ Kd8 53 Qb8+ Kd7 54 Be8+ Ke7 55 Bb5 Bd2 56 Qc7+ Kf8 57 Bc4 Bc3 58 Kg2 Be1 59 Kf1 Bc3 60 f4 exf3 61 exf3 Bd2 62 f4 Ke8 63 Qc8+ Ke7 64 Qc5+ Kd8 65 Bd3 Be3 66 Qxf5 Qc6 67 Qf8+ Kc7 68 Qe7+ Kc8 69 Bf5+ Kb8 70 Qd8+ Kb7 71 Qd7+ Qxd7 72 Bxd7 Kc7 73 Bb5, Black resigns.