MARK RUBERY CHESS
How would the top computer chess programs (not to mention ground breaking Alpha Zero) compare with the now legendary ‘Deep Blue’ that defeated Kasparov in a six-game match in 1997?
The IBM machine ran its instructions through a massive parallel hardware architecture that reached positions per second speeds far beyond the reach of programs running on commercial hardware. Whereas programs such as Deep Fritz, will hit a few million nodes per second, Deep Blue could reach 200 million and in some instances 1 billion! Nevertheless such is the march of technology that today’s top engines such as Komodo and Stockfish, on the platform of a smartphone, would handily defeat Kasparov’s conqueror.
The excellent book ‘Behind Deep Blue’ by Feng-Hsiung Hsu gives some clarification to Kasparov’s collapse in the final game when the score stood at 2,5-2,5. Kasparov’s 7 … h6? blunder was actually part of his opening preparation rather than a slip of the finger. Kasparov might also have hoped that White would have refrained from the sacrifice by withdrawing his knight, leaving Black with a comfortable position. The reality was that Deep Blue was programmed to play the sacrifice on move eight (first played a decade earlier by the famous GM, Efim Geller, in the autumn of his career) after which it crushed the World Champion.
Deep Blue – Kasparov,G (2785) [B17] New York man vs machine New York (6), 1997
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5 Ngf6 6.Bd3 e6 7.N1f3 h6?! (Here Kasparov knowingly commits a well-known error, although the refutation is quite deep and more importantly abstract {giving up material to make the opponent’s position uncomfortable to play} and should be out of the machine’s grasp.) 8.Nxe6! (‘That morning we told Deep Blue, if Kasparov plays … h6, take on e6 and don’t check the database. Just play don’t think.-GM Illescas) … Qe7 9.0-0 fxe6 10.Bg6+ Kd8 11.Bf4 (At this stage Deep Blue was out of its opening book) … b5? (This move is the real error. After 11 … b6 Black’s position is difficult but playable. The move played allows the computer to decisively open up the position) 12.a4 Bb7 13.Re1 Nd5 14.Bg3
(Deep Blue has everything under control and assessed its position as worth being a pawn ahead even though it is down on material. Today Stockfish assesses it as over two pawns …) … Kc8 15.axb5 cxb5 16.Qd3 Bc6 17.Bf5 exf5 18.Rxe7 Bxe7 19.c4 1-0
Not only will computers win in the end, they are already winning against 99.5% of the world’s entire chess playing population. (David Levy, 1983)