Kasparov, 3D rival end chess series in tie
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World chess champ Gary Kasparov and X3D Fritz may have a rematch.
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NEW YORK (AP) -- World chess champion Garry Kasparov tied his computerized opponent X3D Fritz in a final match, leaving the four-game series in a draw.
The match pitted Kasparov against a 12-year-old computer program that has recently been developed into a virtual reality game by X3D Technologies.
The previous three games in the series averaged more than three hours each; Tuesday's clocked in at under two hours.
"It looked like a short game, but for me it was not a game of chess, it was more of a gamble," said Kasparov, 40. "It's very, very important that we're learning. Machines are getting better but we're also learning."
Kasparov and his computer opponent entered game four tied at 1.5 points each. Kasparov tied the computer last week in the first game, lost the second and won the third.
The International Computer Games Association and the U.S. Chess Federation have sanctioned the match as the first official world chess championship in virtual reality.
In the match, the chessboard is suspended in the air on a screen in front of Kasparov, who wears 3D glasses, voice-activates the chess pieces and uses a joystick to rotate the virtual board.
In 1996 in Philadelphia, Kasparov won against the "Deep Blue" IBM computer, but an upgrade of the machine defeated him the next year in New York. And earlier this year, he managed a draw against the "Deep Junior" Israeli chess program.
Tuesday's draw earned Kasparov $175,000; he would have earned $200,000 if he won and $150,000 if he lost.
After the game X3D Fritz, which can compute more than five million chess positions per second, offered its own congratulations to Kasparov.
"With your brainpower, you challenged my Intel Quad Processor, Xeon 2.8 Mhz chip with four gigs of RAM," it said. "Not an easy task."
Officials at X3D Technologies have said they are preparing for a rematch.
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