A couple of days ago, I wrote about how I was upset that I missed Kasparov's victory over X3D Fritz - and now, after watching the final game in the match, I'm even more disappointed. Today's game was interesting to watch for about an hour, and then it just degenerated into a tit-for-tat, play for a draw game. Granted, Kasparov was seriously crippled with the Black pieces and an opponent who never blunders and a tie was what he was going for, while it was up to X3D Fritz to win the match. Today's game lasted just under two hours and was nothing all that special. Every move was seen by the commentators before the computer made it, every tactic was transparent, and when you're playing against an opponent who can see 4,000,000 moves a second and never picks the wrong one, it was just a matter of time before Garry accepted the offer of a draw.

As a whole, the match was quite interesting, and for his hard work, Garry walks away with $175,000, but I'd have loved to see a longer match - perhaps 5 or 6 games and I would also have liked to see Garry with the white pieces again. But, alas, all is done - it was a fun match to watch and I'm thankful ESPN2 and ESPNEWS televised the event, and hopefully, in future years, chess can continue to gain momentum and get more television time. Sure, it's not football, where you've got hard hits every minute or two, but chess is just such an intricate and amazing game, it's a shame more people aren't into it.

URL: Kasparov vs. X3D Fritz