The idea of people playing chess against computers
is very old -- going back at least to the 19th century.
The most famous matches were between reigning world
champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue in 1996.
Deep Blue shocked the world by winning the first game,
but Kasparov was the match as a whole, 4 games to 2.
The next year, Kasparov played a somewhat improved
version called Deeper Blue -- and lost 3.5 to 2.5 games.
It's said that he did not play his best against the
computer.
And who can blame him?
Human beings are made of flesh and blood. They need to
rest, think and study -- and recover. They feel
emotions during a long tournament. They feel tension,
strain, they get psyched out by their competition.
Even worse, they can be psyched out by a machine that
can't experience psyche out itself.
Part of world championship tournament play is knowing
how to vary your openings and overall strategies so that
your opponent cannot predict your plan.
None of that stuff works against computers. They just
play the moves you make and they don't care whether you
opened the last game with Ruy Lopez or the Sicilian
Defense. They just react and play the game they calculate
as optimal. They're not trying to predict you anyway.
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