Now, X3D Technologies presents the First Official World Chess Championship: Man vs. Machine, sanctioned by F.I.D.E. (Federation Internationale des Echecs), I.C.G.A. (International Computer Game Association) and U.S.C.F. (United States Chess Federation).   World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, will play reigning computer Chess Champion, Deep Junior in a world-broadcast event.

The match will take place at the New York Athletic Club. Kasparov and Deep Junior will play six games over a two-week period beginning January 26 and ending February 7. The matches will be broadcast live over the internet in Extreme 3D at www.x3dworld.com. 2D game playback with commentary and live photos will also be available at www.x3dworld.com. A V.I.P. reception will be held January 23. F.I.D.E. President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov stated in Moscow: "New York is the best place in the world to showcase this historical event and promote the game of chess as a symbol of friendship between all the countries." 

Human chess goof hands win to computer 

Friday, January 31, 2003 Posted: 10:36 AM EST (1536 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- World champion chess computer software program Deep Junior pounced on a glaring error by Garry Kasparov on Thursday to draw level with the Russian grandmaster half-way through their six-game match in New York.

Playing with the white pieces, the Azerbaijan-born Kasparov blundered with a rook move on his 32nd turn of the third game, allowing the machine to go two pawns up in material and establishing a winning endgame.

"This was a time pressure move that is ridiculous by his high standards," U.S. grandmaster Maurice Ashley said. "It makes the greatest player of all time look very human."

Kasparov's furious reaction at the board when he realized his mistake left no doubt he had betrayed himself after playing an enterprising game that appeared drawn even though the human player had less time on his clock.

The former world champion who is still ranked number one, shook his head vigorously, stared up at the ceiling and covered his face with his hands as the computer crunched out the win.

Kasparov resigned on the 36th move after three hours and 45 minutes because his position was about to become hopeless with three pawns and his queen to Deep Junior's five pawns and queen.

Kasparov, whose battles with the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997 drew worldwide attention, has vowed to avenge his defeat to the machine six years ago, but now faces a tough psychological struggle for the remaining three games.

"Kasparov blundered ... at that point the position was probably a draw," said U.S. grandmaster Lev Alburt after watching the game at the New York Athletic Club.

The $1 million match billed the "International Chess Federation Man v Machine World Championship" is tied at 1-1/2 points each with the fourth game scheduled for Sunday.

One point is awarded for a win and half a point for a draw. Kasparov won the first game last Sunday and Tuesday's second game was drawn.

The human programmers of the Israeli-built software program that runs on a PC were excited by the victory.

"Behind this is the accumulation of a lot of effort and this is the epitome of what we are doing," said programmer Shay Bushinsky, who along with fellow Israeli Amir Ban have worked on Deep Junior for 10 years. "Deep down in our hearts we are happy." 

Kasparov vs. Deep Junior live in ESPN
06.02.2003 The cable sports network is going to provide live coverage of the sixth game of the Kasparov-Deep Junior match on Friday! They are sending a crew to the New York Athletic Club to transmit the game. This is a big first and the first live national TV coverage of a chess event since Fischer-Spassky. In 1995, ESPN broadcast packaged spots on the Kasparov-Anand match, but they were produced by the PCA. This time around ESPN itself is footing the substantial bill.  
 (From the  ChessBase  web site.) 

NEW YORK -- Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has drawn against a computer in 
a six game man vs. machine contest.

Kasparov was attempting to avenge his defeat in 1997 by IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.

This time around, playing in New York against Deep Junior, Kasparov and the computer won one match each and drew the remaining four.

Kasparov appeared to be in a winning position when he first offered Junior the chance to accept a draw, an offer which was refused only for the computer to offer Kasparov a draw five moves later.

The 39-year-old grandmaster was booed by the crowd for accepting the draw but after the match he was unrepentant.

He said he would have pressed for a win in a similar position against a human opponent but he feared even a tiny mistake would have been severely punished by the computer.

"I had one item on my agenda: not to lose. I decided it would be wiser to stop playing," Kasparov said.

Deep Junior can process 3 million chess moves per second -- far fewer than Deep Blue's 200 million, but Deep Junior's Israeli programmers say it thinks more like a human, choosing strategy over simply capturing pieces quickly.

Deep Blue made chess history six years ago when it defeated then-world champion Kasparov in a six-game match in New York.

Last October, current world champion Vladimir Kramnik of Russia tied his eight-game match 4-4 against a German-built program called Deep Fritz in Bahrain.

Deep Junior, which won last year's world computer chess championship, and Kasparov each won $250,000 for the match played over 12 days. Kasparov was also being paid a $500,000 appearance fee.

Azerbaijan-born Kasparov is considered by many chess experts to be the greatest player in chess history and is still ranked No. 1 ahead of Kramnik by the International Chess Federation, known by its French acronym FIDE. 

Kasparov: 'Intuition versus the brute force of calculation'

Monday, February 10, 2003 Posted: 11:47 AM EST (1647 GMT)

(CNN) -- Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov ended his battle against Deep Junior in a draw after a six game man vs machine contest. Kasparov and the computer won one game each and drew the remaining four.

The world chess champion was attempting to avenge his defeat by IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. On Saturday, he spoke with CNN technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg.

SIEBERG: People might remember his match in 1997 against IBM's Deep Blue, but last night was the conclusion of this first annual official man versus machine match, and joining us now is the man from that match, considered by many to be the best chess player in history, often likened to the Michael Jordan or the Wayne Gretzky of the chess world, if you will. Thanks for being with us, Garry Kasparov.

KASPAROV: Thanks, Daniel.

SIEBERG: Let's start with what it was like to go up against this program, Deep Junior, which is capable of thinking three million moves per second. How do you face an opponent like that that is so emotionless?

KASPAROV: Yes, but nowadays, chess playing programs, they have sort of a personality, and Deep Junior is a very aggressive version. It's many [that have]compared Deep Junior to Kasparov and, for instance, other versions ... [have been] compared to Anatoly Karpov. So it's quite amazing that you can predict, you know, certain aspects of computer styles that differs it from other machines.

SIEBERG: Does it feel like you are playing against a human opponent, though, when you go up against a computer like this? Is it intuitive in some way, or do you really feel like you are playing against this cold, calculating machine?

KASPAROV: It's a very tricky question, because you are overall overwhelmed with this mixed feelings. At one point, you have to prepare as if you are facing a real human opponent. You look at the openings, you try to come up with something very unpleasant for your opponent. You understand it has very specific characteristics; it's not flexible. But at end of the day, it's not human, so that's why to win the game, to beat this machine, you have to be very precise, so it's quite unusual for human game, because normal game is always full of sort of inaccuracies if not mistakes, but why here, if you make one mistake, you are out of business.

SIEBERG: Right, that's a great point. And I wanted to talk about the distractions or the stresses and emotions that you have to block out as a chess player. How do you do that? Because maybe the computer only has to worry about is a power outage or the program crashing.

KASPAROV: Yes, computer doesn't know what it's winning or losing. So it doesn't care about the games we played before, and for instance, when we played the last game, and I go out there in a slightly better end game and many people criticized me for accepting the draw. At that time, I said, look, it's not just a single game, it's not just a simple position, it's the sixth game of the match, and how I will be viewed with the five games I played before with a sleepless night after a terrible blunder in game three when I first missed win, and then a draw. So all emotions there. They put a tremendous burden on a human player, and it's most unpleasant that you understand your opponent is not subject for the fatigue or any other emotions.

SIEBERG: You can't see the computer sweating at all, definitely. Now, why do you think people are so fascinated by the idea of a man versus a machine? Is it because in some way that we are afraid of how far technology has advanced? That it may be beyond the human capabilities in terms of a chess match or any other type of game?

KASPAROV: I think people recognize that chess offers a unique field to compare man and machine. It's our intuition versus the brute force of calculation. You cannot do it in mathematics, you cannot do it in literature. So chess is somewhere in between, in the crossroads, and we always wanted to know how our intuition could be measured by the machine's force of calculation? And somehow even most people understood that at the IBM's claim in '97 that it was over was a bit premature, and now we understand it's just the beginning of a long, long road.

SIEBERG: That's a good lead-in into my next question, which is, how soon do you think computers will be absolutely unbeatable? Let's talk about the evolution of computer technology versus the evolution of a human ability as a chess player? Are they going to continue to be sort of neck and neck or even in the years to come?

KASPAROV: It's a first match that was a purely scientific match, because we had fair conditions for both the human player and for the machine. Machine was properly supervised. Every move was logged. We had an expert committee that watched the machine. So that's why we know everything about machine's decision-making process.

And it's yet for us to lose. So it was me making some bad mistakes, because otherwise, you know, not making the real bad blunders, I could win the match.

I think for a while, we'll be having this sort of lead in these matches. But eventually, I believe one day, we'll be reduced to fighting for one single win. In my view, in 10 years' time, the best human player could beat a machine one single game on our best day. It proves we are still better, because we cannot guarantee the same intact performance for six or eight playing games, while a machine could play for 100 games.

SIEBERG: All right, we're going to hold you to that. Now, we are seeing some footage from the live broadcast from ESPN2 last night. Let's talk about the future of chess and what these man versus machine matches do in terms of the popularity of chess, or people getting involved, you know, being able to play online, being able to play all these software programs whenever they want. Is that a positive impact on the chess world?

KASPAROV: Oh, I think it has tremendous positive impact on the world of chess. It's the first time we had a proper corporate sponsorship... It's a nice mixture of new technologies, three-dimensional technologies in chess and chess and computers. And I think it was -- the great moment in the history of chess was ESPN showing the live event for nearly three hours. I think this match in New York is also a milestone in promoting the game in the U.S. and worldwide.

SIEBERG: All right, Garry, we've just got a few seconds left. But just like a heavyweight boxing bout, I think everybody wants to know, when can we expect a rematch against Deep Junior?

KASPAROV: It's now -- it should be an annual event, and it's the whole idea of FIDE [the French acronym for the International Chess Federation] is just to put the best man versus best machine. And in the regular computer world championships, and if Junior has to win it, and I also have to win the human championship, and if we both win, we will play next year.

SIEBERG: All right, well, we will look forward to that. Thank you so much for joining us. Garry Kasparov in New York City. Thanks for being with us.