It came as a shock to many of us when Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in a 6 game match in 1997. A computer had beaten the best human player in this game that to many is a defining symbol of human intellect. Even though it was “only chess”, it had to be a sign of the inevitable. The machines would soon be taking over man’s role as earth’s ruling race.

But wait a minute. The extremely high profile of the Deep Blue match may have been misleading. In an article at ChessBase, Jeff Sonas explains that the battle is not lost yet. In fact, top chess players have taken on computers 7 times since 1997, all of them ending with a draw. Was it just a stroke of luck for Deep Blue back then?

We may see in November, when Gary Kasparov will representing mankind in a new high profile match against a computer called X3D Fritz. The match will take place in New York, November 11 – 18. It will be a best-of-4 match, glorified in a virtual reality presentation by the match’s sponsor X3D technologies.

So what if the computer wins? We can still beat them at soccer. And if everything goes haywire, we always have governor Arnie to protect us from them evil beasts 😉