After an exciting draw in game two, Garry Kasparov maintains the lead in his six-game match against Deep Junior 1.5-0.5. The first two games of the Kasparov-Deep Junior match have shown us some excellent fighting chess.

There are several noteworthy things apart from the high quality of the games. 1) Kasparov is not avoiding tactical complications. It has become almost conventional wisdom that allowing complications with queens on the board is a sure death against computers. In game two, Kasparov played a Sicilian Defense, sacrificed the exchange, and came very close to a winning position.

2) Deep Junior has so far passed the chess Turing test. Its play has been almost completely indistinguishable from that of a human master. I'm not sure it's really playing like a human Grandmaster so far since it has reached losing or nearly losing positions in both games by move 25. But it hasn't made any obvious computer-like moves.

Left: Junior's programmers Shay Bushinsky and Amir Ban of Israel get things ready before game two.

3) In both games Junior made a mistake on its first move out of its opening book. 9...e5 in game one and 12.Nd5 in game two were weak moves that ignored important strategic factors in the respective positions. In general, if a computer is making mistakes right out of its book it shouldn't be getting into those positions to begin with because it doesn't understand them.

The first two games have confirmed much of what we saw in the Kramnik-Fritz match in Bahrain. The top humans are significantly stronger than the top programs at classical time controls. Before we start talking about preparation and anti-computer play and opening books, we should remember that Kasparov is the strongest player in the history of the game. It shouldn't shock us too much when programs that couldn't beat any Grandmaster 10 years ago can't beat a 2847 player today.

Junior scored 50% in the Dortmund (human) supertournament in 2000, a phenomenal result at the time. Kasparov would have been expected to score at least +4 in that same tournament! It's only two and a half years later and it is unlikely that Junior has improved over 150 Elo points to Kasparov's level in that time. It's hard to track increases in program strength over time against humans because they don't play enough games, but after looking at various events over the past five years anything more than 30 Elo points per year would surprise me.

Discussing this with ChessBase director and computer chess guru Frederic Friedel, we surmise that today's top programs play consistently at a 2500-2600 level of chess quality. The difference is that they instantly and mercilessly punish every human mistake and almost never let a winning position slip. This near-elimination of the margin for error pushes their practical performance up toward the 2800 level.

Of course in many tactical positions computers will play better than any human can ever dream, but that doesn't mean a strong human can't keep up even during heavy tactics. Grandmaster chess rarely comes down to pure tactics for more than a few moves, unless it's a Shirov-Polgar game. (Not for nothing has Judit Polgar been called "our ideal opponent" by ChessBase.)

The problem for the humans is maintaining that high level of play throughout a match. Kramnik cruised to a 2.5-0.5 lead against Fritz while playing a fantastic level of chess. He collapsed in the second half of to finish in a 4-4 tie. One game was lost on an elementary blunder in a difficult position (which Fritz played excellently), the other on an uncharacteristically emotional piece sacrifice that Fritz immediately saw for a blunder.

I'm not trying to split hairs. A performance rating is a performance rating and I don't want to make excuses for humans who blunder, because we all do. Fritz drew an eight-game match with Kramnik, period. If Junior wins a game because of a Kasparov blunder, that's fair. However, it is relevant to distinguish between the overall quality of the chess and the results for those interested in the debate about computers killing chess or becoming invincible in the next few years. When the top progams can play moves like Fritz's 12...Bf8?? in game two against Kramnik or Junior's 17...Rae8?? in game one against Kasparov, we still have a way to go before we have to hang up our pawns and take up something computers aren't good at yet, like ice skating.

Kasparov's match is two games shorter than the Kramnik-Fritz match. But one blunder could set off a psychological chain reaction that could be disastrous. Right now Kasparov is riding high after outplaying Junior in two fine games.

In the second game Kasparov sacrificed the exchange for a strong attack. Junior went pawn-hunting with 21.Ra3 and was close to a second consecutive loss after Kasparov gave up a rook in order to mobilize his queen and central pawns. Kasparov was very upset at the board soon after playing (diagram) 25...Qa1+. He realized a few moves later that White could force him to take a perpetual check draw with a surprising queen sacrifice. In the press conference he said that he thought he had a forced win with the queen check, but that in hindsight 25...f4 would have been stronger.

Junior co-programmer Amir Ban quotes someone from Kasparov's team as saying afterwards that 25...f4 26.h3! was also a draw. We can't be sure yet what Junior would have played. My DJ 7 wants to play 26.Nf1, which would allow black a very strong attack after 26...e3.

Things were excellent at the New York Athletic Club site away from the board. A new media area was set up and the commentary room was switched around to allow for a giant display of the board and a camera directly on Garry shown in X3D! Every trademark Garry grimace, frown, and head shake was larger than life. If you think he's intimidating in person or in photos, you should check him out when he's four meters high and popping out in three dimensions. Forget battling against computers. Coming soon to a theater near you, Kasparov versus Godzilla in 3D!

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Mig Greengard runs ChessNinja.com, lives in New York City, and can think of all sorts of uses for 3D glasses that may or may not be legal. mig@chessbase.com

Text and images copyright Mig Greengard unless otherwise stated. (c) 2003