Into the deep blue

Two significant events now taking place in the United States and Spain have made this a very special week for chess. Readers who followED this column last week would know what I mean.

The first event is, of course, the US$500,000 (about RM1.25 million) man-against-machine challenge in Philadelphia between Gary Kasparov and the IBM chess supercomputer known as Deep Blue.

Unlike previous encounters between man and chess machines or programmes where the games used to be of the 30-minute or 60-minute variety, this match is, for the first time, played according to normal regulation time control.

Each player is allowed two hours for his first 40 moves and this is followed by another hour's play of another 20 moves if the game has not finished by the fourth hour.

With this time control when there is more time for the man to think, Kasparov is expected to show a marked superiority over the computer. But the first game has shown otherwise.

It was history in the making last Saturday when Deep Blue beat Kasparov in the first game of the six-game match. Kasparov was outplayed by Deep Blue which succeeded in breaking up the former's kingside defences before it launched a devastating attack on his king.

However, in the second game on Sunday, Kasparov managed to grind out a long and protracted win in the endgame against Deep Blue. After two games, the score stands at 1-1.

Obviously, Deep Blue must be very special if it is capable of posing so much problems to Kasparov. According to IBM, the computer contains more than one million transistors; it has 48 RAM blocks and three Endgame ROM blocks. These blocks enable Deep Blue to analyse two to three million chess positions per second.

The largest two RAM blocks have 1024x10 bits each and are used to store the values of the chess pieces on each square of the chess board. The largest of the endgame ROM blocks has 128,000x1 bits and it stores the win/draw information for all known king-and-pawn versus king endings.

In a nutshell, Deep Blue is a computational engine capable of examining a billion moves in a second. It is a massive parallel, special-purpose system with an overall processing speed that is 1000 times faster than Deep Thought which was the original chess computer developed by the Deep Blue team in 1986.

For the record, after Deep Thought came Deep Thought II which was 10 times faster. Deep Thought II, later called Deep Blue Prototype, was capable of analysing more than seven million chess positions per second.

The Deep Blue development team, managed by Chung-Jen Tan, is based at the IBM Research Division's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. The team consists of computer scientists Feng-Hsiung Hsu, Murray S. Campbell, A. Joseph Hoane Jr, and Gershon Brody.

SHOWDOWN IN SPAIN

The huge media publicity over the match in Philadelphia has, unfortunately, eclipsed another chess event which is taking place in Spain. The Spanish town of Jaen is the venue of the women's world chess championship match between defending champion Xie Jun and her challenger, Zsuzsa Polgar.

Last week, I postulated that the match would be very close and it would be difficult for Polgar to wrest the title from Xie. Nothing could be farther than reality!

In this match, it is a sorrowful Xie Jun who has her back to the wall. The match is almost over for her and the score stands at 5 1/2-2 1/2 in Polgar's favour after eight games.

Xie's only win was in the first game. She then proceeded to lose the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth games. The other games were drawn.

GAMES OF THE WEEK

This week's selection of games are from the matches in Phildelphia and Jaen. More will follow next week.

Deep Blue - Gary Kasparov, Game 1

1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Be2 e6 7. h3 Bh5 8. O-O Nc6 9. Be3 cxd4 10. cxd4 Bb4 11. a3 Ba5 12. Nc3 Qd6 13. Nb5 Qe7 14. Ne5 Bxe2 15. Qxe2 O-O 16. Rac1 Rac8 17. Bg5 Bb6 18. Bxf6 gxf6 19. Nc4 Rfd8 20. Nxb6 axb6 21. Rfd1 f5 22. Qe3 Qf6 23. d5 Rxd5 24. Rxd5 exd5 25. b3 Kh8 26. Qxb6 Rg8 27. Qc5 d4 28. Nd6 f4 29. Nxb7 Ne5 30. Qd5 f3 31. g3 Nd3 32. Rc7 Re8 33. Nd6 Re1+ 34. Kh2 Nxf2 35. Nxf7+ Kg7 36. Ng5+ Kh6 37. Rxh7+ 1-0

Gary Kasparov - Deep Blue, Game 2

1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 e6 3. g3 c5 4. Bg2 Nc6 5. O-O Nf6 6. c4 dxc4 7. Ne5 Bd7 8. Na3 cxd4 9. Naxc4 Bc5 10. Qb3 O-O 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 1-0

Xie Jun - Zsuzsa Polgar, Game 4

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 Qb6 7. Nb3 e6 8. Qd2 Be7 9. f3 O-O 10. g4 Rd8 11. Be3 Qc7 12. g5 Nd7 13. O-O-O a6 14. h4 b5 15. h5 Nb6 16. g6 Bf6 17. h6 fxg6 18. hxg7 Na4 19. Nd4 Nxd4 20. Bxd4 Bxd4 21. Qxd4 Nxc3 22. bxc3 Qxg7 23. Qb6 Qe7 24. e5 d5 25. Bd3 Bd7 26. Rdg1 Be8 27. f4 d4 28. cxd4 Rab8 29. Qxa6 Rxd4 30. f5 exf5 31. Bxf5 Qxe5 32. Be6+ Kh8 33. Kb1 Ra4 0-1

Zsuzsa Polgar - Xie Jun, Game 5

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nxc6 Qf6 6. Qd2 dxc6 7. Nc3 Be6 8. Na4 Rd8 9. Bd3 Bd4 10. c3 b5 11. cxd4 bxa4 12. Qc2 Qxd4 13. Qxc6+ Kf8 14. Be2 Ne7 15. Qc2 f5 16. O-O Qxe4 17. Qxc7 Kf7 18. Bh5+ g6 19. Bf3 Qc4 20. Qxa7 Qd4 21. Qa5 Nd5 22. Rd1 Qc4 23. Bg5 Rd7 24. Rac1 Qxa2 25. Bxd5 1-0