A momentous day as Garry Kasparov took a 1-0 lead, yet even in victory, the world champion counseled caution to the capacity crowd that gave him a two-minute standing ovation after the game.

"If we carry on in the same style, I will need a lot of energy," he said. Although Kasparov said he "found some flaws in Deep Blue," his opponent played some incredible moves that shocked everyone present, except, it seems, Kasparov.

The game further reinforces the feeling in the chess world that Kasparov is the '"last man standing," but he was not in control throughout, and his worried expression at one point betrayed the pressure he was under when Deep Blue launched a violent if ultimately unsound attack.

In Game 2, Deep Blue plays white and moves first, which gives the computer a much better chance of taking the game into the kind of positions in which it excels.

The champ totally changed his style of play for this game and kept his well analyzed openings in the locker in favor of what could best be described as "anti-computer chess." The key to surviving against the awesome calculating power of the machine is to avoid tactics. To avoid tactics you have to avoid contact with your opponent's pieces as much as possible.

It is a measure of Kasparov's skill that he managed to win the game without once moving any of his pieces into Deep Blue's half of the board. He was scoring a succession of field goals from his own half, while Deep Blue was unsuccessfully looking for that elusive touchdown.

Deep Blue's key mistake was on move 22 when it was seduced by the prospect of an attack but weakened the defense of its king in the process. The attack intensified as Kasparov fell into slight time pressure. But with typical resourcefulness, he sacrificed rook for bishop and pawn to make his position impregnable and reach an endgame where Deep Blue's plan of action was hard to find.

Kasparov straightforwardly removed the obstacles to the advance of his pawn duo and on move 45, the pawns could not be stopped and the Deep Blue team tendered its resignation.

-- IM Malcolm Pein, London Chess Centre