All the talk about science finally gave way to chess on Sunday as Garry Kasparov played his first public game against a computer in close to six years. It was worth the wait, at least if you're a human. Kasparov crushed Deep Junior in just 27 moves. A powerful opening novelty led to a dominating position. Junior sacrificed the exchange to try to escape the pressure, but Kasparov stayed in control and easily converted his advantage.

After a 25 minute delay to get all the display equipment running Kasparov arrived to the board and played 1.d4. In recent years Kasparov usually only plays this instead of his customary 1.e4 when he has something special cooked up in the opening kitchen. As things turned out, that was again the case.

A Grandmaster might have been alerted by Kasparov's switch and tried something off the beaten path, but Deep Junior couldn't do anything other than follow its opening book right off a theoretical cliff. A human's alarm bells really would have been ringing when Kasparov played 7.g4, entering the sharpest lines of the Semi-Slav Anti-Meran. This lunge is credited to US Champion Alexander Shabalov, although it was first played by his Latvian countryman Alexei Shirov back in 1992.

From Alexei Shirov's book, Fire on Board, in the intro to the game Shirov-Thorhallsson: "This game introduces a novelty which should probably be called the "Shabalov-Shirov Gambit", as suggested by Mikhail Krasenkov. As I remember, 'Shaba' expressed the idea first, although it occurred to us almost simultaneously while we were listening to pop music and lazily moving the pieces around."

It has since been played over 500 times, with a mere 22% of the games resulting in draws. Kasparov clearly wasn't going for the cautious style of play generally recommended against computers. Kramnik beat Fritz in Bahrain in games two and three by trading the queens and exploiting positional advantages and exceptional endgame technique. In other words, he won like Kramnik wins against humans. Kasparov won with an opening improvement in a sharp line and then blew Junior off the board. He won like Kasparov wins against humans. Opening preparation, tactical control, resignation, reboot.

This is an interesting twist after a decade of anti-computer chess debates. Kramnik pulverized Junior in Dortmund 2000 with typical stonewall chess that computers didn't understand. In Bahrain last year he told me that the programs had already improved beyond that point, and that to beat them there were no more tricks, just good chess. So now we have computers that play like humans, and with that we have computers that lose like humans.

After the game an ebullient Kasparov told the ecstatic audience about how he and his trainer had discovered the major improvement in this line (13.d5!). There were various opportunities for Black to diverge before this into sidelines, although it is almost certain that Kasparov had something nasty prepared in all of them. If this line is left in Junior's opening book at all, it will probably prefer 9...Bb7 or the common 7...Bb4. You can replay the game online here.

Picking up the pieces after game one. Ashley, Kasparov, Ilyumzhinov, Seirawan

Junior took so long on its ninth move that there was a report of a technical problem by the onsite commentators! (And I relayed this online.) Junior's co-programmer Shay Bushinsky arrived on the scene to put these fears to rest. (Programmer Amir Ban was operating Junior in game one.) Bushinsky explained that it was not unusual at all for Junior to use a lot of time when it encountered a negative shift in its evaluation. Since it had just come out of its opening book to the unpleasant surprise of finding itself much worse, it thought at 20-minute think was warranted!

The game was still in Kasparov's preparation, but Junior was out of book and not happy at all. It didn't get any better for the Israeli program. Kasparov planted a knight on d6 and had a completely dominating position. After the game he said, "All my life I've believed that a knight on d6 was worth a rook, and this game proved it!" Junior must agree with that maxim because a few moves later it sacrificed a rook for the knight!

The most amusing part about this move is that exactly 10 seconds before Junior gave up the rook with 17...Rae8, Seirawan was explaining to the audience in his best help-the-beginners-understand mode that Black couldn't protect the e5 pawn with a rook because of the knight on d6! He was right, it probably wasn't the best move (they recommended a pawn sacrifice with 17...Rad8), but it's always embarrassing to have a move you've just written off to a few million people played on the board seconds later, and I speak from experience!

Yasser explains why 17...Rae8 is impossible, but forgot to tell Junior.

When a computer gives up material you know it's either in serious trouble or about to announce mate in 12 on your sorry human butt. Garry spent 10 minutes making sure it wasn't the latter before grabbing the rook. His trusty trainer, GM Yuri Dokhoian, said during the game that this type of move was not unusual at all from Junior and that they had seen it make many similar sacrifices in their preparation. After that Kasparov spent some time consolidating his position while Junior futilely looked for counterplay. With 24.b3! Kasparov forced the trade of the heavy pieces and it was all over. On move 27 Amir Ban resigned for Junior.

Many thought Garry might sac his queen with 25.Qxc8+ Bxc8 26.Rxc8+ Nf8 27.Nxb3 to finish with a flourish. Those flourishes are exactly the things that get human killed in winning positions against computers. It does look like an easy win as well, but leave a computer's queen on an open board and you are just asking for it to find a bizarre perpetual check or insane tactical trick that forces mate. And you can't argue with a safer move that causes resignation two moves later.

Ban followed Kasparov in the post-game press conference and said, "if Kasparov can do this to Junior in every game then we don't deserve to be here." Anyone who knows Kasparov's capacity for preparation knows that it is frighteningly possible that he could do this in every game! Unlikely, but possible. My recommendation is to send opening book guy GM Boris Alterman out for pizza and when he's gone, delete the damn book off the hard drive! (No insult to Boris, who is a friend and former co-worker.)

Opening books are crutches that can become hara-kiri swords against super-GM preparation. We saw an extreme version of this with 12...Bf8 in game two of Kramnik-Fritz. (Which wasn't a book move exactly, but had almost certainly been seen in Kramnik's preparation for that line.) In game one Junior played ..b6 from its book to prepare for ..Bb7 and then left book and didn't play it!

Left: Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky take a look at DJ before game one. That's not a last-minute bit of Semi-Slav preparation in Shay's hands.

It's ironic that access to a 20 million move opening database can be a disadvantage. My copy of Deep Junior 7, no doubt well behind the one playing in NY, doesn't like many of the opening moves its cousin made in game one from its book. It hates its position after 9.e4, already evaluating it as +0.74 for white. In my opinion I don't think a program as strong as Junior would lose in 27 moves to anybody if you turned off the opening book.

It would take a while to train programs how to 'think' in the opening, but even now they don't play that badly without a book. Openings are empirical, true, and some hybrid use of processing and database should be developed (like what humans do). Deep Blue spent a huge amount of time tuning its own opening book and having it tuned by GMs like Benjamin and Illescas. Alterman works with the Junior team regularly, but without IBM-type resources it's hard to find and fill all the holes. (Not that Kasparov attempted to find them with his anti-computer chess in 1997.) In a short match it's unlikely too many holes will be found, but so far in New York Garry Kasparov is one for one.

The show away from the board at the New York Athletic Club was almost as interesting as the chess. Two rooms with giant video screens and regular TVs were filled with people, although not to 100% capacity. The live commentary was manned by GMs Yasser Seirawan and Maurice Ashley, who both performed the same task for the Deep Blue match. They are an entertaining and talented team. They regularly drew on VIPs from the audience to add to the commentary. Former Deep Blue trainer Joel Benjamin spoke for a while, as did Maxim Dlugy. Susan Polgar, who lives in NY, also chipped in for a while.

New US Women's Champion Anna Hahn, who lives across the Hudson in New Jersey but works in NY, also stopped by. We hope she'll be chipping in on our live commentary during future games if she has time. American chess legend GM William Lombardy also stopped by our table to chat and share a few good stories. He was unimpressed by Seirawan and Ashley's commentary, saying they were trying too hard to make it sound complicated when in his opinion it was crystal clear that Kasparov was winning after 13.d5. (We hereby acknowledge that he was right!)

Bill was also good to the kids who were running around trying to get the autograph of anyone who had an IM or GM title, regardless of if they knew who they were or if they had heard of him/her. There is clearly a need for chessplayer cards similar to baseball cards. (I've seen a few of these, but they've never caught on.) How else can young fans recognize their heroes? Former world junior champ Ilya Gurevich wandered around in happy anonymity, as did most of America's top players, despite being in a room full of chess fans.

GM William Lombardy with an autograph hunter who has no idea who he is. (For future reference, he was world junior champion in 1957 (with 11/11!) and clear second in the US championship behind Fischer in 1960. The former priest is better known to many for being Fischer's second during the 1972 world championship match.)

Right before the game started a third commentator was added to the mix on the stage: a laptop running ChessBase, Fritz, and MegaBase 2003! (You can find the SHOP link for yourself if you want more info on this trio...) Ashley wanted to have it so they could look up the opening lines and, no doubt, to avoid falling for any computer cheapos in their analysis. The GMs would regularly share Fritz's suggestions and at one point several of the displays were set to show the ChessBase screen.

Most of the screens were showing different three dimensional projections using the X3D equipment. There was a big screen of Ashley and Seirawan going over the game on a board as well as displays of the new Fritz 8 3D board using X3D software to make it really 3D. This looks absolutely astounding and I hope it becomes available to the public.

One amusing thing was that they had all the special 3D cameras over the board in the playing room set up sideways, making it hard to see what was going on. (Not that watching a video of a board from above is a very good way to follow a game anyway.) During the game some X3D people asked some chess people (well, me) how it should be and I hope that game two will be shown with white on the bottom!

There was a huge cheer when Ashley announced that Deep Junior had resigned. Before the game around 80% of the audience had voted that Kasparov would win the match and it looks like at least that many also want him to win. In my ChessNinja.com poll, 64% predicted a Kasparov match victory. After the game Kasparov reminded everyone that he had also won the first game of the Deep Blue rematch before going on to lose 3.5-2.5. And that Deep Blue had won the first game of their first match and had also lost the match.

The biggest question going into game two is whether or not Kasparov will play 1...c5 in response to 1.e4. Does playing normal chess against computers extend to using his super-sharp Najdorf Sicilian? Or maybe he's been doing some work in the ultra-topical Sveshnikov lines that everyone was playing in Wijk aan Zee? All I can say is that if this match comes down to a competition of Kasparov and Dokhoian's preparation against Alterman's, Junior is going to be Deep all right. Deep-sixed, Deep trouble, and in Deep doo-doo.

You can watch live with my commentary and photos from the site. As usual I'll be adding comments from Ashley, Seirawan, the Junior team and any other experts who get too close to my table. If Kasparov comes down after the game you'll also be able to read his post-game comments. If you come to the site, I'll be the one typing frantically on my laptop and wearing the black glasses. Just don't put any change into my cup!

The X3D/ChessBase web team: Mig Greengard, Frederic Friedel, John Fernandez

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Mig Greengard lives in New York City and has begun his annual anxious wait for eggnog to appear in the stores. mig@chessbase.com

Text and images copyright Mig Greengard unless otherwise stated. (c) 2002