Chess: Deep Thought overcomes all

DEEP THOUGHT - the world's strongest chess machine - won the ACM Computer Championship with a score of 4 out of 5. Its only loss came by forfeit when its power source failed.

Deep Thought is awaiting the spare parts that will complete its transformation into Deep Blue, the long-awaited custom-built piece of electronic wizardry that will think faster and better than anything yet seen. In this tournament we saw an interim version of new software on the old machine. And very impressive it looked too.

In the following game against the eventual runner- up, it played the King's Gambit (probably following its opening book rather than its better judgment) and was in definite trouble in the middlegame.

The crucial moment came with 24. Rd1] allowing the apparently crushing Re8. White's 25. Ne4]] was hard to believe, but the threat of Rxd5 followed by Nf6+ denies Black the time to take advantage of the pin.

Again after 28. Be3 Bh6, White seemed on the verge of disaster, but DT, analysing 4 million positions a second, had calculated that all was under control. Finally DT's rook was too much for Zarkov's disastrously placed minor pieces in the endgame.

The lesson for Deep Blue's future opponents is clear - go for its plug.

----------------------------------------------------------------- White: Deep Thought 2 Black: Zarkov 1 e4 e5 22 Qb5 Qe6+ 2 f4 exf4 23 Qe2 Qd7 3 Nf3 g5 24 Rd1 Re8 4 h4 g4 25 Ne4 Qa4 5 Ne5 Nf6 26 Rxd5 Rxe4 6 d4 d6 27 Rd8+ Kh7 7 Nd3 Nxe4 28 Be3 Bh6 8 Bxf4 Bg7 29 b3 Qc6 9 c3 0-0 30 Bg2 Rxe3 10 Nd2 Re8 31 Bxc6 bxc6 11 Nxe4 Rxe4 32 Rd7 c4 12 Be2 Qe8 33 b4 Kg7 13 Kd2 h5 34 Kf2 Rxe2 14 Re1 c5 35 Kxe2 c5 15 dxc5 dxc5 36 b5 Nb4 16 g3 Na6 37 cxb4 cxb4 17 Bf1 Bf5 38 Rxa7 b3 18 Qb3 Qc6 39 axb3 cxb3 19 Rxe4 Bxe4 40 Ra3 Kg6 20 Nf2 Rd8+ 41 b6 1-0 21 Ke1 Bd5 -----------------------------------------------------------------