No Winner On Board In Round 3

It was advantage no one after game 3 of world chess champion Garry Kasparov’s match against IBM’s Deep Blue computer, as man and machine played to a draw. Tuesday’s deadlock left their series tied at one win each.

Kasparov offered the computer a draw after his 48th move. Deep Blue immediately accepted, ending the 4-1/2-hour contest.

“Today I didn’t play well, but the computer was a computer and eventually it knew enough not to lose the game,” Kasparov said.

The 34-year-old Russian defeated Deep Blue in Saturday’s opening game of the series, when the computer resigned after Kasparov’s 45th move. On Sunday, Kasparov resigned after the computer’s 45th move, though a review of the game showed he could have played for a draw.

Kasparov defeated the computer last year and has said that barring human error, man will always be better than the machine at chess. But, speaking publicly for the first time since Sunday’s loss, he said he believes Deep Blue showed signs of artificial intelligence in its Game 2 win.

“I still believe (Sunday’s) game will be studied by all computer specialists because I think something truly unbelievable happened,” Kasparov said. “I don’t know how it happened. I think that this machine understands it’s time to think.

“Game 2 shaked my belief in what Deep Blue could do.”