Deep Blue was a supercomputer designed by IBM for playing chess. It defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, laying the foundation for increasingly sophisticated chess computers. Deep Blue was designed specifically for playing chess, with a hardware-based approach. It derived its strategy from extensive documentation of chess games played by Masters and Grandmasters. The 1997 match against Kasparov featured a substantially updated Deep Blue, which won the match. Kasparov later claimed that humans must have intervened during the matches to help Deep Blue win.
Deep Blue was a supercomputer designed by IBM specifically for playing chess. The computer distinguished itself in 1997 by defeating Garry Kasparov, one of the best chess players in the world. Although Deep Blue was retired after this match, the match laid the foundation for increasingly sophisticated chess computers and programs, and many chess players now use chess software as a learning and practice tool to keep their games sharp.
The inspiration for Deep Blue came to Feng-Hsiung Hsu in 1985. Hsu began developing a computer he called Chiptest, later bringing the idea to IBM when he joined the company in 1989. The resulting computer was initially codenamed Deep Thought, and the IBM wildcards later came up with “Deep Blue,” an amalgamation of “Deep Thought” and “Big Blue,” IBM’s nickname.
This supercomputer was designed specifically for playing chess, with developers taking a hardware-based approach, rather than focusing on software like that used in modern chess programs. Like other supercomputers, Deep Blue was incredibly powerful for its time, with 1.4 tons of hardware to back up a chess program written in C and capable of calculating up to 200 million potential positions per second. Deep Blue could see up to 40 moves, or folds as they’re known in the chess world, ahead.
The computer derived its strategy from extensive documentation of chess games played by Masters and Grandmasters. Using the recordings of these games, Deep Blue could consider a wide range of possible moves, moves and strategies that would potentially allow it to respond dynamically to moves made by an opponent. Deep Blue has also improved its game by playing several games with chess masters, with programmers learning from computer mistakes.
Deep Blue’s first match against Kasparov took place in 1996 and Kasparov won the match. The 1997 match, however, featured a substantially updated Deep Blue and computer-integrated adaptations from his experiences in his earlier match against Kasparov. Deep Blue won the match, taking two games outright to Kasparov’s and picking up another point and a half from three ties, for a total of three and a half to two and a half.
Kasparov later disparaged the May 11, 1997 match against Deep Blue, claiming that the computer displayed such a depth of intelligence that humans must have intervened during the matches to help Deep Blue win. He asked for a rematch, which IBM refused, and the issue became a subject of some controversy in the chess and computer science communities. Some expert chess critics have pointed out that Kasparov’s strategy in the 1997 match was extremely conservative and very out of character for him, suggesting that he might have won had he played in his usual aggressive and dynamic style.
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