Commentary for white move 12:

Mr. SEIRAWAN: I was going to say that Garry does appear to have a great deal of nervous tension, especially in this early first game. Normally speaking, he would like to take this opportunity, much like Deep Blue, to think on his opponent's time. You can be sure that Garry, while not at the board, is thinking about the position. That is to say that the position is etched in his mind in a blindfold type of way where he's thinking about the game. Let me just comment on the move Qa5. Qa5 it develops the queen and also the queen covers a great number of conveyors. B 1910, C 1920, D 1940, A 1910, A 1920, a2. So the computer says, "Look I brought my convene out to this wonderfully active square. Aren't I marvelous?"

Mr. ASHLEY: Might I also ask with the rooks, it connects his rooks, like I tell my students, so that's a basic strategy in this case.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Is that where that comes from? I was wondering about that. Indeed, connecting the rooks, a very simple but important strategion, bringing the pieces out. Now, the question is, would a human player have played that move? And my answer is, some would, but most would not. The queen -- a human player, such as myself, would have probably ferred Qc7 or Qe7, ferring to back up the bishop. Garry's move, a3, by the way, is a very nice move, because what he's doing with the move a2-a3 is he's paring to play the move b2-B4 quicking the convene back or following with the move c2-c4 gaining more space.

Mr. ASHLEY: I'm sorry to interrupt, but the last move, talk about unusual, the computer has played bishop from d6 to c7. And Yaz, the bishop and queen are pointed in a direction that's off the chessboard, that's the wrong way! (Laughter) usually you get the bishop and queen pointing towards the king. Here the bishop and queen are pointing to nothing! And not only that, the black queen looks at such a strange square, I would think if you saw a human play this move you'd think he was off his rocker?

Mr. SEIRAWAN: I would scold him. I would scold him.

Mr. ASHLEY: What an unusual move. And now maybe we see some method to Kasparov's strategy, which is let a closed position occur, and then let the computer make mistakes, as opposed to going for it right away where he could -- it's such a great counter attacker, because this is really a strange move, Mike. What could possibly cipitate this kind of response?

Mr. ASHLEY: And Garry is just -- Garry himself is running wild. His head is shaking. He's probably thinking "How dare you play like this against me!" I really can't even figure out the reason for the move, the bishop back to c7. What a strange move.

Mr. VALVO: Well, obviously the computer thinks the bishop is not doing very well at d6. It's hitting against granite there on g3 and maybe it's better off on b6, but the combination of the two ideas of putting the queen on a5, where it would have made more sense to put the pawn on a5, you know, that makes more sense and then put the bishop on c7 makes you think that maybe /T*PBGZ it can play pawn to c5 and gain a tempo, but it's circular reasoning, kind of. I don't know what it's doing.

Mr. VALVO: And one of the things that we all noticed last year is that Garry found that a secret to beating the computer in the sixth game was to give it nothing to do, and this is an example of what happens when it has nothing to do. It's not quite too sure of what strategy to follow.

Mr. ASHLEY: That's a strange point, consideration that it could be aggressive, so aggressive with a move like e6-e5 and control the center. It seems like -- or even bring a rook to the center of the board. Seems like there were very normal things to do in this position, as opposed to something as /TKRA*S ing -- drastic, maybe not so drastic, but unusual as Bc6-c7.

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