World number one Garry Kasparov tied his final game with the chess program X3D Fritz, meaning the exciting and sometimes emotional tournament ended in a draw. Experts say that although computers keep getting faster and smarter, humans seem to be keeping up.
鈥淢achines are getting better, but we humans are also learning,鈥� said Kasparov after the fourth and final game on Tuesday. 鈥淭oday, I know much more about computers than six years ago.鈥� The human chess legend famously lost to the program Deep Blue in 1997.
After a tied first game, followed by a win each for Kasparov and Fritz, the match score was 2 鈥� 2. Kasparov鈥檚 victory was achieved via long-term strategy, while Fritz鈥檚 win stemmed from its ability to ruthlessly capitalise on human blunders. Experts described the final game as a display of 鈥減erfect chess鈥� from both teams.
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鈥淜asparov adopted the right match strategy. He wanted to guarantee above all that he didn鈥檛 lose,鈥� says Jonathan Schaeffer, of the computer science games group at the University of Alberta, Canada. 鈥淭he stakes were high for both sides in terms of pride.鈥�
Current human world champion Vladimir Kramnik drew against an earlier version of Fritz in October 2002 in an eight game tournament. Fritz has also beaten Deep Blue in the past.
Open and closed
Tuesday鈥檚 game was the shortest of the tournament, concluding in less than two hours and just 27 moves. It was evenly balanced from the beginning.
Playing white, Fritz kept the game open, a situation that typically favours the computer. Open games involve more possibilities per move and so enable computers to exploit their advantage in performing 鈥渂rute force鈥� calculations.
This contrasted sharply with Sunday鈥檚 game, which Kasparov won by keeping it closed. In closed games the human has the advantage as there is more opportunity to implement a long term strategy, which computers cannot spot.
Kasparov has played a similar game against humans in the past, always ending in a draw. But this time, the open game may have been more nerve-wracking for him because of the computer鈥檚 inherent advantage. 鈥淗e knows this position well, he just isn鈥檛 happy about having to play against a computer,鈥� observed commentator Mig Greengard.
Man versus machine
Despite this, Kasparov defended consistently and diffused any chances of a computer victory. He spent 20 minutes successfully dodging the loss of his Queen on move 13. But commentators confirmed throughout that at no point did either side have a chance to win.
The result fails to close the human versus machine debate. 鈥淯ntil programs can formulate long term plans, they will still lose games like game three,鈥� says Schaeffer. 鈥淏ut I personally expect computers to push ahead eventually.鈥�
John Fernandez, consultant to X3D Fritz, is not so sure. 鈥淢an and machine will keep pulling each other up,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t is still an open question.鈥�