Kasparov

by Jim Andrews


                        W hen Kasparov lost to Deep Blue
the story was not that a computer
finally beat the world champion
(an inevitability)
but Kasparov's reaction:
it felt like he was playing a human,

no, you don't understand, he said,
there's a certain feel to a game,
a certain intelligence
I thought could only be human
how have they done this?

He lost the match in game two
when he resigned a game
he could have won,
assumed Deep Blue would make no mistakes.

We learned later
its next move would have been a mistake.

He was thrown into self doubt
when the machine suddenly looked human,
as though a thinking entity.

We may be so moved
by fear
for the soul.


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Html created: January 1998
Last Modified: April 1999