Commentary for black move 23:

MAURICE ASHLEY: All the time. If you look at chess books, you see that old question mark, bad move, and watch how the champion is going to crush this bad move. Now you might put a question mark and then you watch Garry's moves, and it's still okay, and you start thinking, this doesn't make sense, something is weird here. And this is what we're seeing. We've seen it so many times, Deep Blue's tenacity is unbelievable. Another question over here in the audience.

GK MOVE: 23 --

DB MOVE: 23...c5

MAURICE ASHLEY: It's clear now that Deep Blue is in its element, and this is where it's the most dangerous. Get back to the question, Mike.

MIKE VALVO: There have been arguments for many years about creating a situation where the playing field for a computer and a human is exactly equal and there's been arguments since the beginning of computer time that computer should not have book memory because a human player does not take a book to a computer -- to a tournament and -- to a computer, yeah -- and Garry even proposed that yeah, he'll play a match but let him take his book to the match next year and let him play with his book in front of him. And you're basically saying that the computer's got a board that it can see all its internal moves and the human doesn't. But the premise of this kind of a match has been from the beginning that computers will try to play in as human-like a tournament as they could, in a human-like form as they could to see how well artificial intelligence was doing. That was the intent at that particular time. And that's still the intent today. . They're trying to play in a human arena, notice that the computer could make the moves itself. There are computer sets where the pieces could be slid underneath, they're magnetized, and they could be moved around. We're not doing that. We're making a human operator actually make the move so that we could create a situation for the world champion where it would be just like playing a real opponent. In fact he has certain /STREUPGSZ where he wants a human opponent sitting in a chair opposite him -- I don't know why, maybe to intimidate them -- for a certain period of time. I don't know, whatever turns you on, I guess.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Okay. Kasparov now moving up -- he has 42 minutes to make after this move c5, the 23rd move. He's a little bit behind on the clock. It's that three minutes a move we want to pay attention to. Deep Blue of course merrily chirping along, playing very quickly. Any other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, I was wondering if you might get some input perhaps by one of Garry's seconds in terms of -- some people that helped him prepare for the match. I don't know if there's been any commentary about why Garry is pursuing the style of play that he is. My understanding is he typically would take a line that has been very well trodden in the past and come up with a novelty fairly deep into the opening and not play something novel so quickly as he seems to be doing here. The second question or comment I had was with regards to making a curious-looking move and getting punished for it. I think that we're starting to see evidence of computers -- the move is ugly, yet it isn't refutable. From the standpoint of a Grandmaster would not play it, yet if you take them to task and ask them to row future the move, it really isn't possible. It's an ugly-but-equal move. And that may yield some interesting insight into the game because these would be moves that would have been rejected out of hand for years because chess theory up until now would say don't play that type of move. And maybe that's what we tried once.

MAURICE ASHLEY: A comment on that second point, it has been the case in chess history. Many evolutions of strategy, if you will. There have been times when if you played -- if you didn't accept an opponent's sacrificed piece, you weren't a man. You know? I guess that's why men are souped. The guy sacks a piece, you have to take it. You can't just decline it. What kind of sissified chess is that? Then Steinitz came along and said, "There are things called positional principles and you don't have to always attack, and if a guy sacks a piece and he's going to get great compensation you don't have to accept the sacrifice." And now people saying this is not the kind of chess we want to play. As soon as sign it's became world champion, they said oh, yes this is the chess we want to play. Then after that came the hypermodern school, Nimzovich, and he said you don't have to always have pawns in the center of the board from the /POEPG. -- opening. You can control the center from a distance. And those mysterious rook moves that put rooks behind pawns when it wasn't an open file. And that wasn't appreciated for a while, until people finally said this thing works. We're seeing that evolve time and time again. Certain styles. Petrosian, for example, played prophylactic chess. He didn't try to initiate anything right away, he made sure they couldn't do anything first, then made sure they couldn't do thinking, -- anything, and then he checkmated them. That kind of strategy, ugly, ugly, but that guy didn't lose chess games. He lost them very, very rarely. He often drew but he lost very rarely. Karpov took on that style, put on more twists to it and he became world champion. So we've seen the evolution of these kind of ugly moves in chess, and now that Deep Blue is playing some weird and ugly moves, but maybe in time we'll come to catch up and see what it's about.

MIKE VALVO: And talking about world champions, I think we have another here.

MAURICE ASHLEY: We indeed do, and please welcome to the stage women's world champion, Susan Polgar. I had the opportunity of working with Susan. We teach at the same school, and she's a wonderful coach. She also has a book out -- what is the title again?

SUSAN POLGAR: "Queen of the King's Game."

MAURICE ASHLEY: That's a great title. Welcome to the stage. What do you think so far of this position? Are you feeling a little nervous the way we are about Garry's chances here?

SUSAN POLGAR: Well, always it's very close to even position, but I like bishops, and the bishop is placed really nice in the diagonal, so I prefer a little bit white. Not by much definitely.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Are you concerned that this knight on e5 might end up on the d3 square, after c4 and Nd3?

SUSAN POLGAR: I don't know if it has enough time, after the knight moves for example to f3. I just got here. I haven't had time --

MAURICE ASHLEY: I know, you play excellent speed chess. You'll get right into this position in about a second.

SUSAN POLGAR: For example, the knight might get exchanged immediately after Nf3 because the knight cannot go to d3 immediately. I would think a very slight advantage for white.

MAURICE ASHLEY: There's tremendous pressure on Kasparov obviously in this match. You I know write about your watch to become world champion. There was a lot of pressure on you in that match. What's it like with the whole world watching you trying to play good chess?

SUSAN POLGAR: Well, I can definitely feel the tension Garry has to go through in this match, because when I played my world championship last year in Spain, there was a lot of tension. A world championship title is a lot of tension. I right in details in the book about it. So I think that's one of the reasons why Garry I think hasn't been able to do his best in this match so far. And to play the computer, it's like playing the world championship match in a way, because the computer is very, very strong, definitely, and he's proved it.

MAURICE ASHLEY: I remember at the beginning of this match you felt like Garry was going to run away with the victory. How is your feeling now about the match?

SUSAN POLGAR: Well, I must admit, it's true, I told you that I thought Kasparov would have an easy time and win. And, you know, after game one, I was more confident, I was right, and after game two, I said, "Hmmm, wow, the computer -- computer knows how to play, too." And after game three, I thought Kasparov is feeling the tension. I can understand that he feels that tension. But that influences his level of play, I think. I think usually the tournaments that he won recently like Las Palmas or Linares, he played better chess.

MIKE VALVO: I'd like to ask a question along another line here. Since you are the world's wems champion, what's it like to be a woman in what everybody thought is up to now is a man's game?

SUSAN POLGAR: That's a very good question. Well, unfortunately I had to face a lot of discriminations throughout my whole career. I'm from Hungary originally, and it started why I want play against men. The idea was that girls, or women, should only play with women. And I really have to fight this very hard, because they just thought it's impossible that a woman would play as a man, the same level. And I feel I didn't prove it, the man I beat, he himself thought okay, it's possible. But I didn't have time to play all the chess players who are men in the world. So it took a lot of time and a lot of results until I got recognition. But even until now, unfortunately, there is a lot of discrimination in chess against women, to start with, in the prices, for example. The prices for women's world championship is like ten times less as for men. So I think that's rather unfair if you compare it to other sports, like tennis. So that was kind of very difficult, to break through. And for example, the Hungarian chess federation when I was living in hungry because I refused to play in the women events, they didn't let me travel for tournaments, international tournaments. So I had to play a lot of difficulties. Again, there are a lot more details in the book about it, but basically it's very difficult and still is difficult to be a woman in the chess world.

MIKE VALVO: One of the things that I noticed when you're /TEFPG kids in their early teen years was that when girls had to play boys, that they wouldn't win because they were afraid of upsetting the boys. I mean they had crushes on the boys and they didn't want to beat their poor egos. What do you say about that? Did you experience that?

SUSAN POLGAR: Hmmm... I think it can happen at specific days, but I don't mean in general. Usually when they play chess, a girl has a crush on all the boys she plays, not even one specific one.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Well, crushes aside, let's gelt back to this. We hope will be a crush for somebody, at least. Kasparov is thinking quite a bit on this move and I would have to say he's a bit concerned. You say you like the bishop. You had a little bit more time to look at the position. What about black's pieces, though? Black's pieces seem well posted, well centralized, no major weaknesses in the black forces. Do you think this is a position Garry wanted?

SUSAN POLGAR: If I were Garry, I would imagine something more dynamic and more lively position, there are month chances. This is kind of solid position, riskless. This is like wanting to avoid risks, make a draw and not to risk a loss, kind of strategy, it feels to me. But again, you know, many games have been won with very slight advantage, especially by Karpov and also by Kasparov. So it's a strategy, but it's the kind of -- it's Hungarian, playing on your side of the board, not risking anything, you know.

MAURICE ASHLEY: I know you lost your first game of your world championship match. That's got to be heavy. You want to do with well -- to do well, and you lose. This is akin to Kasparov. He came in with all kinds of hopes, he wins the first game, then second game, bam. You're gone. How do you come back from that? You must have been devastated.

MIKE VALVO: Especially when he lost a game which he found out later could have been drawn.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Even worse. How does a world champion with this kind of tension respond in do you get help from the side? Or do you go in the bathroom and bang your head against the wall a few times? What do you do?

SUSAN POLGAR: Well, I was in a way lucky compared to Garry during my match because Garry I had 16 games, Garry has six. To losing the first game wasn't that bad and as my husband said it's best to lose the first game than and have 15 more chances to come back. Imagine losing game 15, for example. He's in a sufficient situation because he has a very short time to come back after game two. I think that's the reason why he's cautious because he's so much afraid to lose another game.

MAURICE ASHLEY: Do you think six games is unfair to Kasparov?

SUSAN POLGAR: I think it's too short for him to be able to play his normal chess.

MAURICE ASHLEY: You're saying if there were 20 games, you'd see more vintage Garry Kasparov?

SUSAN POLGAR: I think so. I think he wouldn't be so afraid of taking risks, because here every move has such a big value because of the shortness of the match.

MIKE VALVO: And this is true, because he has to learn about the machine from scratch, they didn't give him any information, and in this reconnaissance mission it takes time, and say six-game match he may feel that it's too short to actually learn. When he played Anand, the match was very equal up until about ten or 12 games, and then whamo, he crushed him.

MAURICE ASHLEY: It was a 20 game match back in 1995 at the twin towers of the world trade center, and that 20 game match saw eight draws in the beginning. Then in game nine he lost, and then won in game ten, and then the next few games started the roller coaster, bulldozer kind of chess that Garry Kasparov is known for and managed to put the match away in short order.

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