Garry Kasparov was the highest rated chess Grandmaster in history and World Champion for a consecutive 15 years, from 1985 to 2000. His reign of dominance was finally put to an end when he faced off with Deep Blue, a powerful computer designed by IBM, in 1996. The result of this match was a victory for Kasparov, yet the story did not end there.
Kasparov accepted a rematch against Deep Blue and the event took place in May 1997. The start of the match saw Kasparov winning with ease but as the games progressed he found himself struggling against the computer’s strength. Nevertheless, Kasparov attempted to set a trap which should have been easily noticed by any computer – unfortunately for him, Deep Blue managed to counter-play and ultimately leveled the score at 1-1.
The following three games ended in draws and it became clear that Garry had become psychologically drained due to his difficult fight against Deep Blue. In what would prove to be the final game of this historic match, Deep Blue emerged victorious over Kasparov after managing to win this decisive game – marking it as the first time in history where a computer had defeated a World Chess Champion during an entire series of matches!
Kasparov did not take this defeat lightly and accused IBM’s team of cheating during this game due to alleged human intervention meant to improve Deep Blue’s strategy. To learn more about what happened during these legendary matches we recommend watching Vikram Jayanti’s documentary film Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003). Through interviews with Kasparov himself as well as other key figures from this story you can truly understand what happened all those years ago!
