Yet the reality was that Deep BlueРІР‚в„ўs victory was precisely because of its rigid, unhumanlike commitment to cold, hard logic in the face of KasparovРІР‚в„ўs emotional behaviour. Listen to an audio version of this article on The ConversationРІР‚в„ўs In Depth Out Loud podcast. Meanwhile, to many of those in the outside world who were convinced by the computerРІР‚в„ўs performance, it appeared that artificial intelligence had reached a stage where it could outsmart humanity РІР‚вЂњ at least at a game that had long been considered too complex for a machine. He and his supporters believed that Deep BlueРІР‚в„ўs playing was too human to be that of a machine. In an echo of the chess automaton hoaxes of the 18th and 19th centuries, Kasparov argued that the computer must actually have been controlled by a real grand master. When Deep Blue took the match by winning the final game, Kasparov refused to believe it. Kasparov had won the first game, lost the second and then drawn the following three.

In defeating Kasparov on May 11 1997, Deep Blue made history as the first computer to beat a world champion in a six-game match under standard time controls. The victor was even more unusual: IBM supercomputer, Deep Blue. ItРІР‚в„ўs not uncommon for a defeated player to accuse their opponent of cheating РІР‚вЂњ but in this case the loser was the then world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. The loser reacted with a cry of foul play РІР‚вЂњ one of the most strident accusations of cheating ever made in a tournament, which ignited an international conspiracy theory that is still questioned 20 years later. In just 11 more moves, white had built a position so strong that black had no option but to concede defeat. When black mixed up the moves for the Caro-Kann defence, white took advantage and created a new attack by sacrificing a knight. I guess that was cheating, but we needed all the help we could get and, like I said, we never got past level 5 anyway.On the seventh move of the crucial deciding game, black made what some now consider to have been a critical error. Also, we could undo our moves when we saw that we had made a mistake. I think we worked our way up to level five or so, and it was both of us against the computer. One was the easiest level and then 10 would have been the most difficult. This was back before there was a personal computer in everyone's home, so this was a big deal to us. We would play his home computer, which had a chess playing program on it. In high school, my friend and I had our own version of Deep Blue.

Computers are much better chess players today than Deep Blue was when it played.

With chess, programmers can load so much information into a computer program that it is virtual impossible for the computer to lose no matter who the person it is playing against. I know humans like to think they cannot be replaced by computers, but for many jobs we can. Some knowledgeable chess critics pointed out that Kasparov's strategy in the 1997 match was extremely conservative and very out of character for him, suggesting that he might have won if he had played with his usual aggressive, dynamic style. He demanded a rematch, which IBM refused, and the issue became a topic of some controversy in the chess and computing communities. Kasparov later decried the match against Deep Blue, arguing that the computer displayed such depth of intelligence that humans must have intervened during the games to help Deep Blue win. Deep Blue won the match, taking two games outright to Kasparov's one and gaining another point and a half from three draws, for a total of three and a half to two and a half. The 1997 match featured a substantially updated Deep Blue, however, and the computer integrated adaptations from its experiences in the previous match against Kasparov. Deep Blue's first match against Kasparov took place in 1996, and Kasparov won the match.

Deep blue chess sketch