Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

When James Cameron released The Terminator back in 1984 with its mythology of a future robot-human war that would lead to the planet's possible destruction, I doubt he would have envisaged a similar battle taking place thirteen years later. But there would be no time-travelling cyborg, no unborn future saviour, no battle-scarred landscapes full of human skulls, and certainly no Michael Biehn. This one was much more low-key. It consisted of one genius chess player, one super-computer, and a small band of smug computer nerds.

After beating IBM's Deep Blue computer in a chess match in 1996, world champion chess master Garry Kasparov, widely regarded as the best player in history, agreed to take up a re-match a year later. This time, IBM believed it had something up his sleeve, recruiting former chess champions to 'teach' Deep Blue how to play like a human. It was to be a fun experiment, pitting man against machine. After demolishing Deep Blue in the first round, IBM came back in the second to beat Kasparov. Sending Kasparov into a paranoid decline as Deep Blue's power became apparent, he starts to wonder about the legitimacy of IBM's claims, the goings-on behind closed doors, and why the IBM corporation are refusing to show the computer match logs.

First of all, for a documentary about chess, this is purely riveting stuff. The psychological torment that can be experienced by chess players engulfs Kasparov. As the experts say, chess is a game where you must be expectant and suspicious of your opponent, making it an ultimately paranoid game. The mind games that Kasparov accuses IBM of playing on him just destroys him, and his deterioration is played out in the fantastic stock footage of the match. The film eventually becomes not only a study of what it means to be human, but also a commentary on the corruption of corporations - I must say, although nothing is proved, it is clear where director Vikram Jayanti's beliefs lie.

The film begins with title cards explaining how an 18th-century chess- playing machine called 'The Turk' managed to beat a number of players, including Napoleon Bonaparte. It was apparently a well-constructed machine, but was in fact a hoax, and tricks and construction allowed for a person to fit inside it, but create the illusion that only cogs and mechanics lay inside. It is used as an obvious metaphor for the accusation faced by IBM of cheating and playing the man in the machine. In fairness, the film offers the men behind Deep Blue the chance to have their say, and they do themselves no favours. They come across as arrogant and smarmy. Yet the film's obvious siding with Kasparov seems unfair given that the accusations made against IBM are unproven, and no evidence is offered in the film.

That flaw aside, this is undoubtedly a gripping documentary, and Kasparov makes for a warm host and narrator. The match seemed to have its effect on Kasparov, as he soon lost his world title afterwards, and the mental strain and bitterness is still there to see. It did actually make me want to play chess too, although I'm crap.

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Not sure why everyone is saying that this is biased. There was lots of screen time for IBM. Their reasoning for concealing everything was pretty weak in my opinion. Legal mumbo jumbo about private vs public matches, absurd excuses about concealing code and game logs. Not on the up and up in the least. The movie itself was a fascinating discussion about the nature of corporate PR and the possible taking advantage of a tightly controlled publicity campaign. They made it seem like everything was out in the open, but if you look a layer below, the signs of opaqueness are, at the least, concerning. Engineers being allowed to tinker in between games, putting the computer in a locked room, refusing to display code or log files, immediately abandoning a rematch and destroying the computer. The IBM engineer in the movie even seemed to be gaslighting and turning the screw deeper on film. He relished in the controversy and mind games. If that is the man behind deep blue, I would be very concerned. He seemed like a sociopath. But that's just my two cents. If they played it fair, they certainly didn't behave like they did after the fact. Let alone the suspicious mistakes mixed with brilliant moves in game 1 and 2. The movie is fascinating and less biased than people give credit for. The turk B Roll is a bit gratuitous, but overall, IBM got to march out their weak excuses for hiding and controlling everything. The upside for them was way too high to not make all the circumstantial evidence baseless. Its a must see if you are a chess fan.

I was very much entertained by this film, which I saw at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. I was also disappointed; it lacked the objectivity I expect in a documentary. Overall it presented too much imagery, and not enough facts to satisfy my desire to know more about what "really happened" during May of 1997.

The film recounts the 1997 chess rematch between Gary Kasparov and IBM's "Deep Blue" computer. Much of the film describes and investigates the aftermath of one key event that occurred during the match. During the second game, the computer played a chess move that surprised the entire chess community, including Kasparov. Kasparov was in disbelief a computer would be capable of the style of play corresponding with the move, and lost the game. Afterwards he accused the IBM team of cheating (through human intervention). IBM denied the accusation.

While this film will be of particular interest to chess fans, I believe it is still accessible to those without chess knowledge (I know the rules and have played some games of chess so I could be mistaken). Any chess understanding necessary to understand the critical "move" is explained by various people in non-chess terms. In my option, the interesting stuff is not on the chess board anyway.

Kasparov really fills the screen. He is certainly very engaging. As too are most of the other people he shares the screen with.

Throughout the film, scenes are connected with images invoking an 18th century chess playing machine called "The Turk". This "machine" is now known to be an illusion; a human operator was making the decisions during games. Other scenes are connected with short haunting stills of hallways, presumably at the IBM research centre where "Deep Blue" was created.

I found these scenes to be tiresome after the third iteration. In the case of "The Turk", I don't know if they were intended to reflect the "mystery" of the cheating accusation, but as some of the images clearly show a human operating the machine, it left little room for doubt in my mind that these were intended to in some way support the cheating accusation. In the case of the "spooky hallways" images, again, they suggested to me that the filmmaker supports in some sense the accusation.

I wish more time was spent presenting the IBM side - especially more screen time with Joel Benjamin, the chess expert on the IBM team most qualified to defend IBM's assertion that the machine was capable of playing as it did during the second game of the match.

After the film's screening, the director, Mr. Vikram Jayanti answered some questions from the audience. During this session, he first made it clear he had no option if IBM "cheated" or not. In answering a subsequent question, while not directly stating it, his comments made it seem that he did in fact think IBM cheated. This pretty much reflected what I experienced during the movie. I wished if he really thought that IBM cheated, he would have been more clear, and more fully explored the facts.

Game Over chronicles the infamous chess rematch between world champion Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer specially designed for the game that took over 30 man-years to create. The film itself is a mere 85 minutes and wastes no time making its assault on IBM, starting off with a damning reference to "The Turk," a famous hoax which purported to be a chess automaton. Roughly half of the film continues this bare-knuckle attack, with the director using creepy fade shots interspersed with interviews with IBM employees and an annoying whisper voice commentary to clearly inform the audience of who the "bad guys" are. This blatant taking of sides from early on is somewhat distracting to the viewer, as the facts presented later seem questionable due to the overwhelming bias of the filmmaker. For example, the film notably does not mention one of the programmer's attempts to stage another rematch between Kasparov and Deep Blue. Seeing as one of the primary arguments used to discredit Deep Blue's win is the refusal of a rematch on IBM's part, it seems outright irresponsible to ignore this important fact completely.

The other, and much better, half of the film is the story of Gary Kasprov and the trials and tribulations he faced during his match against Deep Blue in 1997. The film shows a side of Kasparov many may be unfamiliar with. While the mainstream media at the time seemed bent on selling him as an arrogant, flustered, and tactless mad scientist of sorts, Kasparov proves the contrary with his charisma and wit. He acts as a kind of tour guide throughout the film, taking the viewer everywhere from the headquarters of the Soviet chess program to the site of the match in New York. Not surprisingly, most viewers will find themselves rooting for a considerably humanized Kasparov and feeling the sting of defeat as the overwhelming pressure of the press, the matches and the future of chess all wreak havoc on his concentration.

Unfortunately for chess buffs, the film itself pays little attention to the actual match itself. It gives a brief description of how each side did in each game and briefly points out the move Kasparov thought was too "uncomputer-like" to have been made by a machine. The DVD, however, does have a fairly detailed reenactment of the matches done in Chessmaster, complete with commentary. The unbalanced and frankly boring and repetitive slam on IBM earns a 3, but the compelling story of Gary Kasparov earns a 9, making this film a 6 over all. If you are interested in the subject, it's worth the rent but the attack on IBM seems too vicious considering the hazy circumstances.

I am a chess player and I wanted to like this film. Trouble is, the content could have been fitted in a 30-minute documentary.

There were lots of shots of corridors being walked down and Kasparov gazing out in the hall where he won the World Championship. There were other shots of Kasparov being walked round the site of the 1997 match and being told where he sat and where Deep Blue was located. This just looked like filler.

Also, I didn't find it interesting to see in detail where Deep Blue was now and seeing an IBM techie trying, unsuccessfully to 'open' it. What would we have seen of interest inside anyway - a little grandmaster?

Also, the recent match against Karpov. I no longer follow professional chess enough to know when and where this was. It would have been nice to have been told: was this a one-off 'just for the money'? Was it part of the world championship cycle? What was the final score? The nub of the film was the play in game two. Could/would IBM let Kasparov see 'inside' the machine? That's where the focus should have been.