It is certainly true that humans and computers do not play chess in the same way. Computers excel in “tactical” positions. They are best when evaluating whether a piece is at risk. Where computers lag behind human players is when they find themselves boxed into a “closed” position, that is, a position from which no clear strategy emerges, or in situations that demand an assessment of a move’s long-term merit. Here, the human imagination far outshines the computer’s powers of calculation. A grandmaster like Kasparov can take in or visualize the entire board. He feels threats, senses the safety of his king, intuits opportunities. The computer commands none ofthese faculties, and can only counter with an astounding ability to runsome 200 million calculations per second. In short, the machine treats chess not as an art form, but as an enormous but mundane arithmetic problem. Believing that Deep Blue was “stupid,” which is to say no more than a glorified calculator, Kasparov locked himself into a very specific anti-machine strategy. But Deep Blue was not just a machine – in fact it was perhaps less of a machine than any of its predecessors, if only because the IBM team had managed to program into its software lessons learned from the highest ranks of grandmasters. The team anticipated Kasparov’s tactic, and built into the software that ran Deep Blue enough flexibility for the computer to adjust itself to the champion’s various attempts to outwit it.

Nonetheless, Kasparov won the closely contested opening game. But, by game two, IBM’s hard work began paying off. Not realizing that the computer’s chess knowledge had grown exponentially, Kasparov stuck to his game plan. By move 35, Deep Blue, playing the white pieces, had gained a significant advantage. The next move, 36, turned out to be not only the most decisive of the game, but also the catalyst for the drama that ensued.

Generally speaking, the move that allows the capture of an opponent’s piece without endangering one of its own is the move the computer will make. Knowing this, Kasparov and his team of experts laid a trap for Deep Blue, fully expecting the computer to counter by threatening the black bishop with its queen. In Kasparov’s estimation, the move would appeal to the computer’s sense of “greed.” It was also arguably the best move on the board – in all but one way. It left open the outside possibility that Kasparov could launch a counterattack. Only a grandmaster’s highly developed intuition could sense the danger. Somehow, Deep Blue got it. It resisted making the expected move, instead initiating a sequence of two moves aimed at countering the counterattack. Kasparov was stunned. Eight moves later, he resigned the game.

That evening, Kasparov was forced to absorb yet another seismic shock. Post-game analysis showed that Deep Blue had, in fact, botched things early on, and, had Kasparov stayed in the game, he could easily have played to a draw. That Kasparov missed the opportunity was a sure sign that the most brilliant mind the chess world had ever seen had begun to unravel.

Kasparov soon found himself unable to call on any of his legendary powers. He became convinced that IBM had cheated. He accused the corporate team of allowing human intervention. “I felt we were a bunch of amateurs, challenging the terrible faceless monster,” he said some years later. In 2000, the fifteen-year world champion lost his title to his twenty-five-year-old former protégé, Vladimir Kramnik. He has not won it back since.

(Recently, Kasparov has been back in the news, this time in connection with Russian politics, having founded a group called Committee 2008: Free Choice, whose chief aim is to bring down Vladimir Putin and foster Western-style democracy in the country.)

Looking back on the match that broke Kasparov, one is left with little doubt about IBM’s behaviour. The corporation bent the rules as far as it could. It knew very well the effect of its hardball strategies. “We felt that we had broken him. We really did,” said Joel Benjamin, Deep Blue’s resident grandmaster. But playing hardball is still very different from cheating, and there has never been any evidence to support Kasparov’s allegations. (Unfortunately, Vikram Jayanti leaves the viewer with the impression that there may be something to the wild accusation. In the opening sequence, and then again, near the end of the film, a voice-over whispers conspiratorially, “Consider this. The day that Deep Blue beat Kasparov, IBM’s stock rose fifteen percent.” This isn’t true – the stock rose only a few points the following day – but Jayanti justifies it by saying it is “atmospherically correct,” meaning that it reflects Kasparov’s paranoia.)

But what of Kasparov’s performance? He was not exactly a hapless victim of a corporate giant’s ambitions. The catalyst for his fall had to have come from somewhere else. There are two kinds of grandmasters in chess: the kind, like Kasparov, who win matches and crowns, and the kind, like Miguel Najdorf and Aron Nimzowitsch, who develop moves. Some of the most masterful plays in the history of chess have been invented by the latter variety – formidable minds who have never won a title or even played for a championship because, ultimately, they may have lacked the supreme confidence, even arrogance, that it takes to win. It’s the confidence that forges the pure, noetic power of a concert pianist, or a prima ballerina, or an Olympic pole vaulter. All great chess champions have it, too, and most have learned to insulate the precious quality from the world, to sustain it through losses and failures.

That, in the end, may have been Kasparov’s undoing. When Garry Kasparov played Deep Blue, he had had very little experience of real failure – had never lost a major match, never given up his crown. The realization that he had grossly underestimated his opponent must have come as a colossal shock. But, where another player might have accepted his mistake and recovered, his inner faith in himself intact, Kasparov cracked. His genius had not prepared him for defeat.