MORE COMPUTER CHESS!….Chess champ Garry Kasparov suffered a humiliating loss to IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer back in 1997, and current champ Vladimir Kramnik melted down a few months ago in his match with Deep Fritz, blowing an early lead and ending up in a 4-4 tie.
Yesterday Kasparov decided to try again, this time in a six-game match against Deep Junior. The Singapore Straits Times headlined the match this way:
Well, yeah, but that seems like sort of a glass-half-empty approach to the thing, doesn’t it? Slashdot took a slightly different approach: “Humankind Makes Last Stand Against Machine,” which might sound a bit apocalyptic, but chesswise it’s probably true.
Anyway, Kasparov won the first game in 27 moves, a stunning victory. The second game is on Tuesday, and this time the computer will be playing white. Humankind awaits its destiny.
