Deep Fritz vs. brain

Abstract

First there was Deep Blue; now it's the turn of Deep Fritz… The computer chess program that defeated Deep Blue (which itself defeated, in 1997, the then human world champion, Garry Kasparov), ‘Deep Fritz’, is set to challenge Vladimir Kramnik, the current human world champion (who defeated Kasparov to take the title last year). Written by a team led by Dutch programmer Frans Morsch, Deep Fritz is said to be able to run on a laptop and to analyze six million moves per second. Kramnik, on the other hand, said he ‘would be happy to do one [move] a second – but always the right one!’. In a change of rules from the 1997 Deep Blue–Kasparov match, which some said were unfair to the human player, Kramnik will be allowed to rest every six hours and will be able to study Deep Fritz's past games, and Deep Fritz will not be re-programmed between matches. The eight-game tournament will be played in Manama, Bahrain, between 14 and 31 October. MW