Commentary for white move 15:

The g-file has opened up. The g-file has opened up. White can swing a rook, Rd1-g1, get some counter play. Black's pawns aren't weak. They're easy to defend, but at the same time you're going to have to defend them.

DB MOVE: 15 Rdg1

MAURICE ASHLEY: And as you spoke about the g-file Deep Blue has prepared a move in this regard and has instead played Rd1-g1 and it becomes completely clear that Deep Blue has intentions of opening up that king-side, is preparing all the forces to attack on that side of the board. I'm sure Kasparov is happy his king is not sitting over there because it would be curtains pretty quickly. But right now Rd1-g1, and Deep Blue is just going to attack with h5, it looks like, and do its best to break in on that side. A bit of an unusual move, though, preparing first with Rg1 instead of h5. But we saw before in game two when Deep Blue made that mysterious rook move, the rook behind the pawn, even though the file was not opened yet, with Re1-c1. So now the same kind of thing going on. And the clock time showed 1:41 for Kasparov, 1:41 left for Deep Blue, excuse me, and 1:36 left for Kasparov. I believe that was how the clock was. But anyway, either side has plenty of time here on the 15th move. The time control is 40 moves in two hours. That means that they have to make their first 40 moves in 120 minutes. They both have two hours on their clocks. And we've seen the computer play very quickly. Never get in time pressure, never, not even close. Kasparov on the other hand has at times been in a bit of time pressure as he's had to think for a long time about different moves.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Well, indeed, we've seen throughout the match that Garry has regularly fallen behind on the clock, so it's kind of rare to see Garry finally have a little bit more time than the computer. I think it's time for my poll. Every game I like to gauge the audience how you feel about today's game, what's going to happen. I ask you for results and who's going to win and who's --

MAURICE ASHLEY: You're supposed to be telling them.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Oh, I'm telling them that, that's right. So let's begin. Who thinks that Deep Blue, who won the last game with the white pieces, will win today's game as white?

MAURICE ASHLEY: Not too many supporters of that theory.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Some, some. I noticed some of the kids down there seem to believe in the computer's prowess. Who thinks Garry is going to win today? Oh. Lot of fans, lot of fans. And who thinks that Garry and Deep Blue will draw?

MAURICE ASHLEY: A lot of people think that, too.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: A lot of people think that too.

MAURICE ASHLEY: So not bad for Garry, but bad for Deep Blue. But we've got carbon based life forms in here, so --

YASSER SEIRAWAN: That's true, they're not very accurate.

MAURICE ASHLEY: They're biased.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: They're biased. Who likes Deep's -- "Deep's" -- who likes Deep Blue's position right now as we speak? Right now. Who would prefer to play Deep Blue's position right now? Pretty good. And who thinks Garry's position is slightly better. Okay.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Wow, there's so few people, everybody thought Garry is going to win, but few people want to actually play the position.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: It's building up. And who thinks the position is just balanced, basically balanced? Pretty good, pretty good. Who liked Deep Blue's last move, thought that was a really sophisticated move, dropping in behind that pawn like that?

MAURICE ASHLEY: Not too many people liked that one.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Not too many. Me, neither. Me neither. I don't like the move. First of all, obviously it's very committal. And one of the things that is happening is that Deep Blue is putting a lot of -- a lot of value behind the move h4-h5, opening up the king-side. Well, black could always bypass him with the move g6-g5. So this move is quite a committal one, and let's say that black, for his part, /TOFS change the theater of battle, and play the move f7-f6. And just imagine that the new battle shifts to the e5 square. It is conceivable that this rook on g1 will very quickly come back to the e-file. And then we'll see the switch of one way and back, so we'll see a loss of t"e -- tempi by computer. For example, if you continue with h4-a5, why else, Deep Blue, did you play the room Rd-g1? After d takes, g4xh5. For example, knight back to c7, what has really white accomplished with his rooks? At the same time, this pawn on h5 could be weak. The move Qe7-f7 becomes attractive. So all together /-LTD I'm -- all together I'm not too impressed with the move Rdg1.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Well, I don't know, Yaz, if it played h5 first and that exchange occurred, couldn't it rook profit on the g-file? It doesn't make sense if the file stays closed, but if the file opens up, maybe it's okay. If the file is forcibly open, I guess. I imagine that's what the computer is counting on, the file will open no matter what Garry tries to do.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Well, let's assume that Garry doesn't want the file to be forcibly opened and instead plays Nc7, and then after the move h5 g5 Qe3, pressuring the g-pawn. Now we'll see a move, for example, like f7-f6. If we were to see the exchange e5xf6 gxf6, black has a very solid formation in the center and the king-side. He has allowed the possibility of this passed pawn, but at the same time that passed pawn is only going to be meaningful in the endgame, way down the road. In the meantime, black is going to have a pretty good middle game coming up with the move e6-e5.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Also the rook on g1 is not really good here and would have to shift position. An ultrafinesse perhaps on the part of the Deep Blue with the move Rd1-g1 or a wasted tempo? We'll have to see. We'd like to open up questions to the audience. Certainly if you have any questions regarding any of the games, there are ushers in the aisles. Therapies a question down here. Ushers will give you microphones. Place wait until the microphone is with you and give us a moment. And we do have a question down front.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Really two questions. One is what about g5 then h4-h5. But the other question is has game two been resolved in terms of whether it was drawn or whether the line that Roman talked about yesterday was actually a win?

MAURICE ASHLEY: Good question. Let's go with the second question first. Has the issue of game two been resolved, was it really a draw, as many Grandmasters supposed, and even Deep Blue, according to the operators, Deep Blue said, "Yes, it was a draw." But there are some lines that suggested, particularly Grandmaster Roman Dzindzihashvili suggested one line that seems to say that it was interesting and maybe white was still playing for a win.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Couldn't get tickets for yesterday's game, sir? No, because actually --

MAURICE ASHLEY: No, Roman actually brought up this point in yesterday's game, and we hadn't resolved it. You weren't here. He suggested a variation after Qe3 where white gives up the bishop on e4 and tries to bring his king into the corner and bring his queen to c5, if you recall this position, and he thought that white would have a decisive position or a very good position. Let's put it that way.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Okay, so I guess it still is on open question. I respect Roman's analysis a great deal. I had focused my attention on the forcing lines. And certainly in the forcing lines, it's a draw. But if there was a way to handle the position in a kind of positional, strategical way, well, then there's play and maybe it's unresolved, but at the time I thought draw.

MAURICE ASHLEY: The first question was what about g5 and then h5 in this particular position. Let's say after Nc7, could white try to play g5 first, that way his g-pawn can never advance and then try to somehow execute the h5 idea?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Certainly he can. The question is, what does he gain? What does he gain? Let's say that while you're busyly preparing g4 and doubling your rooks on the h-file, in order to make that h5 break, black, in the meantime, may be playing on the queen-side, now that the knight has retreated to c7, the break c6-c5. So white is not going to gain anything by simply just exchanging pawns on that side of the board. In fact it will actually make black's task easier to defend the king-side after you move g4-g5.

MAURICE ASHLEY: So you're saying after the move h5 even if you've got it in this position all you've got was the open h-file, while the other way around, if I may understand what you're saying, is would allow the g-file to open up, not only would white have a file, but something to bite on, the g7 pawn, and now he's playing for something?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Exactly. Thank you, Maurice. More questions in the audience? We're doing such a good job? I can't believe it.

MAURICE ASHLEY: That crystal clear.

MAURICE ASHLEY: We have one question here.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Was the seventh move, d5, a waste of tempo?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Good point.

MAURICE ASHLEY: It's often made -- on move 7 -- the pawn was on d6 earlier and it went to d5. Was this a wasted tempo?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: In a sense the simplest answer to your question is yes. Moving the same piece twice early in the opening is a waste of tempo. However, this particular opening, or, rather, defense, has a strategic aim of bringing the light squared bishop out first before locking up the center pawns. So black does lose a tempo, thereby gaining a disadvantage, but at the same time achieves a closed French-style position with his bishop outside of the pawn chain.

MAURICE ASHLEY: In fact, if you will, the c6 move for the French is sort of a waste of a tempo.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Most certainly.

MAURICE ASHLEY: But it gives so much flexibility the way black played the position that he could have chosen several different ways of handling it, depending on how white handles the situation?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Exactly.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Subtle play in this position. Now Kasparov has gone /STPWAOU his first real think of the game. This move Rdg1 has started his first real think. Now, as usual, Deep Blue playing quickly, always about three minutes a move, clip, clip, clip, and the opening much quicker. Kasparov needing to slow down, finally, to really understand what's best in this position. The pieces are now coming to a head. Deep Blue has clear, aggressive intentions, planning to play h5 and trying to break open the position and get some play. So Kasparov has to work everything out, -- out, and that's what he's doing right now. We have other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I came in a little late so I'm not sure whether you explained it, but on the center screens --

YASSER SEIRAWAN: We've covered everything. Sorry, go ahead.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: On the lower right-hand corner from our viewpoint, you have the bar graph. Could you explain that, and also what's below it in terms of what's happening? Is that the system evaluating all the moves?

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Yes. The gentleman's question refers to the little box down here on the right-hand corner. It is a visual aid to give you -- Fritz, which is a PC program that we're using, a microprocessor program, will give you a visual graphic of how it perceives the advantage is going. The red all means that at the time those moves were played, Fritz believed that Deep Blue held the advantage. Whenever the graph turns green, it believes black, the advantage is swinging to black. The little point-count, 0.06 that you see there at the moment, or has just moved up to .09, means nine hundredths of a pawn. If you see a 90, it means nine-tenths of a pawn advantage. Finally, the move Fritz wants to play is the move Qb4, which is move ten out of a possible 37. In other words, at this particular moment Garry has 37 legal possibilities, and Fritz considers Qb4 to be the best one. I don't like the move Qb4 myself, preferring Nc7.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Garry is really intense right now, and I've been watching his eyes, and they've really been focused on the king-side, the side where Deep Blue has initiated his pawn storm. He wants to make sure that there are no breaks possible, and he's confused by it. And what he's also done, as I noticed, he's starting to hunch over the board a bit, you know, that physical presence. You play Garry Kasparov quite a bit and you know that physical presence, that aggression that just seems to come out and just /KPAOUD from his body as he's at the board, taking over space, almost, kind of moving you out of the way and forcing you to back up a little bit. And it seems as if he's taken on that aggressive posture now as if he's got to do something and he's got to figure out what that is.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Indeed, Garry literally launches himself into the game by moving into the board. And we spoke about Garry's passion. It's absolutely the truth. He's easily the most animated player in the world's best players today. Most chess players dearly covet the poker face. Don't want to reveal anything, you want to keep all your emotions hidden, you don't want to blush when you know you just blundered, you don't want to grimace, you don't want to -- (putting hands on face.)

MAURICE ASHLEY: Even after chess players have lost the game, if you don't want to give anything away as if to say it hurts for me to have lost. Just kind of keep the smooth face and then go back to your hotel room --

YASSER SEIRAWAN: And cry.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Bang your head on the sink.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: And Garry is very passionate. I've spoken of him as a chess artist. That's the way he perceives himself, as a chess artist and sportsman, and he just wears his passion openly. "I'm going to beat you!" Blam. "Oh, no, it didn't work. Oh, geez, what am I going to do now?" I'd love to play poker with Garry. But he's very -- he's very open. He's very, very expressive, and he pulls faces and he grimaces. At first, in Philadelphia we talked about this, we thought that, you know, Garry overacted a bit, that he did it deliberately to upset his opposition --

MAURICE ASHLEY: Anand in the world championship match said that it's ridiculous, I mean he's doing this to try to intimidate me, he's doing all this, pulling faces, why is he bothering me because I'm just playing chess.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: Right.

MAURICE ASHLEY: But it was clear when Kasparov played against the computer that this guy couldn't control himself! (Audience laughter.)

YASSER SEIRAWAN: That's the way he plays. That's the way he plays. And all of the grimaces and soul-searching in the world isn't going to affect Deep Blue at all. Deep Blue is /PWHRAO*EUTly ignorant of anything Garry does, including his pacing. And this is just Garry's natural style.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Doesn't Garry sort of feed off of an opponent that shows some emotion? Sometimes we've seen him in situations in games -- I remember in game two when he was in a bit of trouble looking at the computer operator as if to say "Give me something, what does Deep Blue think, what do you see on that monitor?" And the operator apparently has been trained to keep the stone face the whole time and Garry can't feed off anything. Now Kasparov is reacting interestingly. He's really deliberating, as you can see, a lot of issues far, far deep into the position, what's about to happen, and so he himself is not very clear. Now he's -- I'm not sure what this one means.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: No. (Audience laughter.)

MAURICE ASHLEY: I don't want to hasten and say what this means. I'd say he's a bit concerned. It looks like he's just musing, lost in thought about exactly what is the most precise move he should play in this position.

YASSER SEIRAWAN: That kind of expression that you just saw -- and by the way, aren't these projections great? I mean really, they're superb monitors. I could stand in the back and see everything accurately. That kind of musing that you just saw to my mind when I play against Garry, it seems to suggest that he's made an inexact itude, meaning "Oh, I could have done it the other way." I pick that up from him. And let me just say a couple of things about Garry. And then I'd like to know a little bit more about those kids over there. Garry has one of the best blitz players in the world. What I

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