30 years ago: Kasparov takes down Deep Blue

by Johannes Fischer
2/17/2026 – Deep Blue was the first computer to win a match against the reigning World Champion. In May 1997, Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a six-game match by 3½–2½. Deep Blue was also the first computer ever to win a game under classical time control against a reigning World Champion - the first game of the first match between Deep Blue and Kasparov. In light of these successes, it is easy to forget that Kasparov won the first match 4–2 and at times made the supercomputer, which calculated an average of 126 million positions per second, look like little more than a competent beginner. Kasparov recognised the computer's potential at an early stage. | Photo: ChessBase
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The match took place from 10 to 17 February in Philadelphia, with a prize fund of $500,000. For his victory, Kasparov received $400,000. After his sensational loss in the first game, Kasparov once again showed the resilience and fighting spirit that so often characterised his career. He won the second game and levelled the match.

Following two draws in games three and four, Kasparov also won the fifth game, taking a 3–2 lead going into the sixth and final encounter. A draw in that game would have been enough to secure overall victory, but Kasparov wanted more and dismantled the tactically superior computer with a strategic masterpiece.height="1"

A remarkable victory in which Kasparov demonstrated the weaknesses that even the best computers of the time still possessed. Thirty years later, computers have more than caught up, and even programs running on mobile phones are stronger than the best humans. Yet, contrary to the predictions of many pessimists after Kasparov's 2½–3½ defeat in the second match against Deep Blue in 1997, the mysteries of chess remain unsolved, and the game is more popular than ever.

On this DVD a team of experts gets to the bottom of Kasparov's play. In over 8 hours of video running time the authors Rogozenko, Marin, Reeh and Müller cast light on four important aspects of Kasparov's play: opening, strategy, tactics and endgame.

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Topics: Deep Blue, Garry Kasparov
Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
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