Commentary for black move 12:

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Again one of the computer's extraordinary gifts or strengths is its resourcefulness. Under direct attack it's extraordinary what the computer can discover as a way of bending the position. And the computer loves to gobble up material, take a pawn or two, and then defend. But when the computer isn't directly attacked or given ssure, then the computer is given a little rope to make its own discoveries, and in this particular case I think the computer has gone awry. The queen on a5 and the bishop-back move make a poor imssion. Overall the computer still has a very solid position.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: It hasn't done enough with it. And I agree with you, Maurice that, you know, bringing the room to the center or trying to crack the center with e6-e5 would have been the natural, local course for a human to take. For a computer to take, again, you know, the queen covers a lot of squares, and the bishop was undefended on the square d6. So we can understand why a computer made its move. We may not agree with the computer's move, but we can understand it.

Mr. ASHLEY: I know what happens to me when somebody plays a move like Bd6-c7. My response is usually "Okay, now I'm just going to have to hurt you." (Laughter.) You don't play moves like that. Spending 40 minutes about how to hurt and then I don't figure it out and then I make some random move and I get into time ssure. This could very easily happen. But Kasparov is of course a professional and world champion. No doubt he's going to let this position hurt itself, so to speak, that queen on a5 will have to solve its own problems while Garry is carrying out a very straightforward program.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: We haven't taken a poll. It's very important that our audience participate so everybody benefits.

Mr. ASHLEY: Yaz likes polls enjoy love polls.

Mr. ASHLEY: Everybody has to participate no matter what.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: That's right. Okay, the first point is, we know that Deep Blue has doubled its speed. It's awesome. The second thing we know that grandmaster Joel Benjamin and the entire research team of IBM and Deep Blue spent practically a whole year, or longer improving the program, improving the program, improving the program, and especially the opening. So we know that Deep Blue is far more formidable this year, but, the crucial question, how many of us think that Deep Blue is going to win the match?

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Well, we've got -- eyeballing it, I'd say a third.

Mr. ASHLEY: Not even.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: No?

Mr. ASHLEY: No.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: A fourth?

Mr. ASHLEY: Yeah, maybe a fourth.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Let's do that again. How many of us think...

Mr. ASHLEY: Yes, it's a tame number, trust me.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Okay, how many think the match is going to be a draw? 3-3, squared off. We've got one wise guy. And how many think Garry is going to win?

Mr. ASHLEY: Ho!

Mr. SEIRAWAN: That looks like three fourth.

Mr. ASHLEY: That many humans in here?

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Okay, I have also dicted a victory for Garry, because so much that Deep Blue has been doing, Garry has not been sitting on his /HRAURLZ, either. Mention has been made of Garry's superb results in 1996 and earlier this year, in February, he won one of the strongest tournaments. Linares.

Mr. ASHLEY: Kasparov has responded quickly. And interestingly enough, again we go to that idea that he is simply -- he has simply ignored the last two moves that Deep Blue has made. Well, not so much ignored when Qa5 occurred. But with Bc7, it's not as if he's taking it to that bishop. In fact he's going over to the right side of the board to carry over his planning of expansion. It's looking like he wants to get that bishop on the side of the board by playing the move g3-g4 and that will get the bishop to go back to g6 and then he'll take it. So he's sort of using the computer's own ferences against it with this last move.

Real-time text commentary is made possible by LiveNote, Inc. and Vincent Varallo Associates