PART 1 • The gorilla in the corner
By the end of the decade the computer had been rechristened Deep
Thought. Its first version contained two parallel processors and could
analyze three-quarters of a million chess positions a second. Bear in
mind that this was at a time when the now-antiquated and hopelessly
slow 8088 processor was the standard for home computers; as I write
this in 2012, Chess King's engine Houdini 2 Pro analyzes more than
three million positions a second on my relatively inexpensive dual-core
home machine. But the reason why I even have a dual-core machine is
due in large measure to the Deep Thought team's research into parallel
processing back in the 1980's.
An improved version of Deep Thought, containing six processors and
capable of analyzing a full two million positions a second, played a two
game match against then world chess champion Garry Kasparov in New
York in 1989. The computer lost both games, one because of a bad bug
in the programming which misevaluated the importance of castling. The
match earned some attention nationally and was the subject of a PBS
Nova broadcast on how computers “think” (a show well worth tracking
down if you'd like to watch it).
Kasparov was quoted at the time as saying, “Right now there is no limit,
because I can win any challenge.” With 20/20 hindsight we can smile
and emphasize the “right now” in that statement, as everything was soon
to change.
Commercial computer hardware manufacturers weren't snoozing during
this period. From the late 1980's to the mid-1990's home computer
processors became faster and faster. A joke circulating at the time (said
only partially in jest) was that home computer technology was advancing
so quickly that any computer you bought would be obsolete by the time
you took it home and got it out of the box. In 1994 Intel unveiled it first
Pentium processor; Kasparov didn't know it at the time, but the Pentium's
introduction would mark the beginning of his doom when playing chess
against machines.
In May 1994 a major blitz tournament was held in Munich, Germany.
Eighteen top players participated, including Kasparov and a commercial
chess program called Fritz. In their individual contest, Garry with the
White pieces opened with 1.e3, an old trick human players often use to
try to get the computer out of its pre-programmed opening book. Fritz
shot back 1...d5 to grab the center. The game's opening transposed into
a Queen's Gambit Accepted and, when the proverbial smoke of battle
cleared, Fritz was the winner. It was the first time that a chess computer
had defeated a reigning world champion in a recognized tournament
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