Vladimir Kramnik - Deep Fritz Match

Deep Fritz Match

Kramnik played a six-game match against the computer program Deep Fritz in Bonn, Germany from 25 November to 5 December 2006, losing 2-4 to the machine, with 2 losses and 4 draws. He received 500,000 Euros for playing and would have received another 500,000 Euros had he won the match. Deep Fritz version 10 ran on a computer containing two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. Kramnik received a copy of the program in mid-October for testing, but the final version included an updated opening book. Except for limited updates to the opening book, the program was not allowed to be changed during the course of the match. The endgame tablebases used by the program were restricted to five pieces even though a complete six-piece tablebase is widely available.

On 25 November the first game ended in a draw at the 47th move. A number of commentators believe Kramnik missed a win. Two days later, the second game resulted in a victory for Deep Fritz, when Kramnik made what might be called the "blunder of the century" according to Susan Polgar, when he failed to defend against a threatened mate-in-one. The third, fourth and fifth games in the match ended in draws. In the last game Fritz with the white pieces defeated the World Champion, winning the match.

There is now speculation that interest in human vs. computer chess competition will plummet as a result of the Bonn match and other recent matches involving Kasparov, Kramnik, Adams, and various chess programs. According to McGill University computer science professor Monty Newborn, for example, "the science is done".