Even before Garry Kasparov sat down to play Deep Blue, IBM's chess-playing supercomputer, the event was already making headlines around the world. This match marked the first time that a reigning world champion ever played against a computer under World Championship conditions. Kasparov was at the top of his form after defeating Vishwanathan Anand the previous year for the World Championship. His opponent, IBM's Deep Blue, was to-date the greatest chess-playing computer ever constructed. The match promised to be exciting, and the media attention was unparalleled. And not since the legendary Fischer-Spassky cold war battle in 1972 was there such a wide audience for a chess event.

A Sicilian opening marked the beginning of game one. By move 11, Deep Blue was out of book and began making its own calculations. Kasparov stuck to his historically aggressive approach and immediately went on the attack. Deep Blue refuted his challenges at move 23, displaying some aggressiveness of its own by choosing to advance a pawn instead of defending it -- a strong move according to commentators covering the match.

Deep Blue proved its mettle over the next series of moves by correctly assessing that Kasparov's attacks possessed no real threat. Throughout the game, Deep Blue exhibited what seemed to be an astonishing disregard for Kasparov's offensives. In the end, this tactic proved successful. Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in game one, marking the first time in history that a computer had beaten a world champion under match conditions.

But a determined Kasparov would not be so easily defeated. Over the course of the match he learned the nature of Deep Blue's strategies -- the computer's tendencies, patterns, and style of play. Deep Blue, on the other hand, was not able to change its approach based on the techniques of its opponent. Kasparov correctly surmised that changing strategy mid-game would confound Deep Blue. He used this tactic to perfection in game two, beating the computer to even the match. Kasparov now had a strategy that he knew the computer could not overcome. In the end, the world champion won the six-game event 4-2, and the developers of Deep Blue went back to the drawing board for this year's rematch.