Chess: Dabbling with the deep

William Hartston
Sunday 09 May 1993 18:02 EDT
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DEEP Thought II is on its way. The world's strongest chess computer, in its previous incarnation as Deep Thought, won games against grandmasters and took first prizes in strong tournaments, but even analysing at two million positions a second it never quite looked world class. Now, with new hardware being made and an improved program ready to run, its speed of thought could be increased by up to tenfold.

Recent tests have seen a combination of the old and new Deep Thoughts playing under the name Deep Blue, or, when playing in Scandinavia, Nordic Deep Blue. Today's game, played in a match against top Danish players, shows that apparently deep positional ideas can flow from brute force calculation at four to five million positions a second. Black's middle-game play from move 20 to 40 is an examplary display of how to nullify the effect of a threatening pawn majority. The mating net woven at the end is pretty too, but trivially easy for a brute of this power.

----------------------------------------------------------------- White: Lars Bo Hansen Black: Nordic Deep Blue ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Nf3 Nf6 28 Nxc5 Bh5 2 c4 e6 29 e4 Nd6 3 Nc3 d5 30 Nxd6 Qxd6 4 d4 Be7 31 Bf2 Qd2 5 Bf4 0-0 32 Qb3+ Bf7 6 e3 c5 33 Qh3 Rfd8 7 dxc5 Bxc5 34 Be3 Bxe3 8 Qc2 Nc6 35 Rxe3 Bc4 9 a3 Qa5 36 Rfe1 Rb8 10 Nd2 Be7 37 Qg3 a5 11 Bg3 Bd7 38 Rc3 Qd4 12 Be2 Qb6 39 Qe3 axb4 13 0-0 d4 40 Qxd4 Rxd4 14 Na4 Qd8 41 axb4 Rxb4 15 b4 Rc8 42 Kf2 Rb5 16 Nb2 e5 43 Na4 Ra5 17 Nb3 dxe3 44 Nb6 Ba6 18 fxe3 Qe8 45 Nd5 Bb7 19 Rad1 Ng4 46 Ne7+ Kf8 20 Qc3 Bg5 47 Nf5 Ra2+ 21 Bxg4 Bxg4 48 Kf3 Rdd2 22 Rde1 f6 49 Rc7 Rf2+ 23 c5 Nd8 50 Kg4 Rxg2+ 24 Nd2 Qc6 51 Ng3 Raf2 25 Qc2 b6 52 h4 g6 26 Ne4 Nf7 White resigns 27 Nc4 bxc5 -----------------------------------------------------------------

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