Kasparov - Deep Blue: Aftermath
 

Coverage of the second (1997) match of Kasparov against DEEP BLUE has exceeded all earlier «human» championships in its intensity. Same can be said about after-match responses. The Kasparov's own explanations hit the highlight as he many a time hinted on mysterious causes of his defeat. It was essential for the qualified observers that his defeat was a consequence of implausible fiascos in the 2nd and 6th games, and not a result of the strong play of the supercomputer. It's hard to say what influenced Kasparov most of all. In any case, the Match result is rather «IBM (and not Deep Blue) 3.5 - Kasparov 2.5». I chanced to become familiar with the extreme viewpoint on the Match after having found V.Lebedev's article in the Internet Don't Play Non-Human Games www.lebed.com/art89.htm, in Russian. The author exhibits an interesting but not too benevolent view. The title talks for itself, and the key arguments are that the chess is one of the not promising games that suggests algorithmisation (as distinct from cards, etc.) plus the picturesque comparison with the tick-tack-toe which is to prove that the chess 'has not reached the qualitatively new stage'. Surely, the comparison between chess and tick-tack-toe is correct. Both games can raise positive emotions with a man - which is the main thing. It's true that somebody of the great (Pascal?) has mentioned once that the man is, in the long run, interested in the man himself. The difference is that the tick-tack-toe is reduced to 3-4 variants and becomes a bore to children quite soon while the chess diversity may not be assessed by neither man nor calculated by the computer - even within the visible generations of people and computers. Many people play chess all their lives. One more distinction of chess is that they are not simple already at first sight (and are about as abstract as writing or money). Therefore, some people restrict themselves with tick-tack-toe. As to the chess algorithm, this is explained by mathematical finality of chess. True, each position has its exact (though in advance unknown) number of correct solutions-moves and precise assestment. This is one of the key properties of the game, and there will always be somebody wishing to test themselves against the ever elusive but still existing somewhere at the boundaries of human understanding perfection. Those who like infinity may appease themselves with the thought that chess are infinite because we may talk infinitely about it. While not attempting to prove this thesis in practice, I conclude with the observation that the Kasparov - Deep Blue Match proved that Man (and his offspring) has not outgrown chess.
 
Mikhail Golubev, July 1998

Kasparov - Deep Blue games
www.chess.ibm.com
cnn.com/WORLD/9705/03/chess.rematch
Ogonyok journal about Rematch (in Russian)