By his own admission, the pressure got to Garry Kasparov today. It was the not the $300,000 difference between first and second prize nor the massive media attention this match has received. It was Deep Blue's astonishing play the world champion could not come to terms with.

Kasparov was off-balance coming into this game, a man who, for once in his career, had let his emotions overcome the logical impulses of his own chess genius. Still smarting from his reverse in the second game, Kasparov had lost his objectivity and accepted his strategy has failed.

In a bizarre twist, Kasparov avoided his favorite opening moves and started to play like his longtime human rival, Anatoly Karpov, who loves to defend with an opening known as the Caro-Kann. This was a clear sign things were not right, but Deep Blue, naturally, did not notice and just played the standard moves. As early as move seven, Kasparov made a clear mistake allowing a sacrifice of a knight that is known to be very strong. A quick check of the computer chess databases showed that of the nine players who had allowed this sacrifice, only one had survived and he needed a large slice of luck.

With Deep Blue, luck does not come into it, and we witnessed the shortest ever game between man and machine at the top level. After just under an hour, Kasparov realized how hopeless his position had become. We did not have to wait long for the killer blow from Deep Blue that ended the game after just 19 moves and win the match 3.5-2.5. The champion issued a challenge at the post game press conference: " It's time for Deep Blue to play real chess. I personally guarantee I will tear it in pieces." Fighting talk, and I fervently hope we will see Deep Blue participate in wider world of chess.

What has changed in the machine that lost last year ? The director of the IBM research team, C.J.Tan, explained: " Three things were improved this time around; it's more powerful, we added more chess knowledge and we developed a program to change the parameters in between each game. "

Kasparov is still in shock, and was in his hotel room last night studying printouts from the Deep Blue team that he hopes will give him some insights into its wonderful play that have entertained and will, in time, educate every chess player.

-- IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre