Kasparov, Deep Blue Play to 3rd Draw in a Row

World chess champion Garry Kasparov and the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue on Saturday agreed to the third consecutive draw in their $1.1-million duel. After five games, the score is tied at 2 1/2-2 1/2, so the final game, starting at noon PDT today in New York City, will decide the match.

On Saturday, Kasparov played White and repeated the first two moves of his victory over Deep Blue in the first game. Deep Blue’s seventh move seemed strange, and its 11th made Kasparov goggle in disbelief. Soon White secured a small but permanent advantage. Despite strenuous efforts, Kasparov never managed to increase his advantage.

Kasparov called Black’s 23rd move “very good.” At move 30, Deep Blue temporarily won a pawn by exchanging Queens. Kasparov immediately attacked Black’s vulnerable g-pawns, but Deep Blue countered with threats on the other side of the board. In the final position, Kasparov offered the draw because Black threatened to check perpetually at d1 and d2 with his Rook. The game lasted just over four hours.

Kasparov appeared surprised by the last few moves of the game, although he later claimed to have foreseen the finish. He said, “It was a miracle that Black escaped.”

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Before the game, Kasparov seemed to attribute his draws in the third and fourth games to the emotional shock of missing a saving move in his Game 2 loss. On his Web site, Kasparov was quoted as saying, “I couldn’t prepare normally, I played Games 3 and 4 in a big crisis. I know Deep Blue can be beaten unless I’m not in the right mental condition.”

After Saturday’s draw, Kasparov was more generous in praising the machine. “There are very many discoveries in this match, and one of them is that sometimes the computer plays very human moves,” Kasparov said. “In a way I have to praise the machine for understanding very deeply positional factors.I think it is an outstanding scientific achievement.”

Nevertheless, Kasparov demanded that a printed record of the computer’s logic during the game be placed under seal, Associated Press reported. “It’s a way of ensuring that the computer was not tampered with,” match arbiter Carol Jarecki said.

Kasparov receives $700,000 if he wins the match, $550,000 if he draws, and $400,000 if he loses. The cash is from IBM, which is using the match to test parallel processing. One joker called Kasparov a debugger.

Deep Blue has already improved on its 2-4 score against Kasparov in their 1996 match. The IBM programming team says that the faster 1997 version can examine 200 million positions per second. In addition, Deep Blue has benefitted from the advice of former U.S. champion Joel Benjamin, the New York grandmaster who joined the team eight months ago.

Here are the moves of Saturday’s game.

Kasparov-Deep Blue No. 5: 1 Nf3 d5 2 g3 Bg4 3 Bg2 Nd7 4 h3 Bxf3 5 Bxf3 c6 6 d3 e6 7 e4 Ne5 8 Bg2 dxe4 9 Bxe4 Nf6 10 Bg2 Bb4+ 11 Nd2 h5 12 Qe2 Qc7 13 c3 Be7 14 d4 Ng6 15 h4 e5 16 Nf3 exd4 17 Nxd4 0-0-0 18 Bg5 Ng4 19 0-0-0 Rhe8 20 Qc2 Kb8 21 Kb1 Bxg5 22 hxg5 N6e5 23 Rhe1 c5 24 Nf3 Rxd1+ 25 Rxd1 Nc4 26 Qa4 Rd8 27 Re1 Nb6 28 Qc2 Qd6 29 c4 Qg6 30 Qxg6 fxg6 31 b3 Nxf2 32 Re6 Kc7 33 Rxg6 Rd7 34 Nh4 Nc8 35 Bd5 Nd6 36 Re6 Nb5 37 cxb5 Rxd5 38 Rg6 Rd7 39 Nf5 Ne4 40 Nxg7 Rd1+ 41 Kc2 Rd2+ 42 Kc1 Rxa2 43 Nxh5 Nd2 44 Nf4 Nxb3+ 45 Kb1 Rd2 46 Re6 c4 47 Re3 Kb6 48 g6 Kxb5 49 g7 Kb4, Drawn.

* The chess column is on B5.