Six games. A defining encounter.

The 1997 match

Deep Blue defeated reigning world champion Garry Kasparov 3½–2½ in New York in May 1997. Kasparov won game one, Deep Blue won game two, the next three were drawn, and Deep Blue won the deciding sixth game.

Game 6 is playable in the replay above. Games 1–5 are shown as match context; their replays are not included yet.

A rematch, not a single encounter

Kasparov had won the 1996 match 4–2, despite losing its first game. The IBM team improved the system before the rematch. The 1997 result was therefore part of a development process, not an isolated machine appearing fully formed.

Why it matters beside Turochamp

Turochamp makes the early idea of procedural judgement visible. Deep Blue shows how far specialised search, evaluation and hardware could take the task. Its victory under tournament conditions was a milestone in machine performance.

It did not establish that winning at chess is equivalent to human thought in general. That distinction is worth preserving even when the match is remembered as “human versus machine”.

Watch the final game

The replay begins from the starting position. At 8.Nxe6, White commits a knight to the attack. Later the rook enters the e-file and captures Black’s queen. Follow the changing material and king positions rather than assuming every capture makes a position safer.

The match ended by resignation after White’s nineteenth move. The replay stops at the actual final position and does not invent a checkmating finish.