Deeper Blue

May 3, 1997 - This was the day that Garry Kasparov, the reigning chess champion, began a six-game series against the IBM computer known as Deep Blue.

Kasparov had defeated an earlier version of Deep Blue the year before, so the IBM team went back to the drawing board. The new "Deeper" Blue was twice as fast as its predecessor and was capable of evaluating 200 million positions per second.

The competition would carry on for 8 brain-throbbing days with Kasparov finally making a critical error in game six that gave the victory to Deep Blue. The machine prevailed with a score 3½ to 2½.

After the series, Kasparov expressed his suspicion that there may have been some human intervention during the games on behalf of Deep Blue. IBM denied this, and claimed that the only human input that Deep Blue received was between games - which was in keeping with the agreed upon rules.

Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM refused and Deep Blue was soon dismantled.

One of Deep Blue's racks is on display in the National Museum of American History.