Commentary for white move 11:

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Yes. But on the other hand Garry has not succeeded in the opening today. Especially in game six in Philadelphia match, Garry got a very large advantage with the white pieces, and I would say that Deep Blue's team has to receive a lot of kudos for this particular position. I do not feel that white has an inspired position. In fact, I think that white's position is at best quite tame, and it's not a blocked position. That is to say that none of the pawns are interlocking, so that it will be very easy for Deep Blue with the moves e6-e5-e4 to open the position at its choice. So Garry can't write home to Moscow and say, "Look what I did." This is not a big deal for white.

Mr. ASHLEY: Then again, though, the other side of it is that it is something that Garry knows. He knows exactly what the strategy of this position is, and there's something to be said for just knowing the strategy, because then you don't really have to work too hard at the board to work out all the variations and complications. You sort of play what's been played for a hundred years.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Well, Garry knows a lot about chess. He couldn't have become the world chess champion if he didn't, and he knows a great number of positions. But quite truthfully, the thousands upon thousands of hours of homework that Garry has done in his study does not include this position. He's much more of a Sicilian and Gruenfeld and King's Indian type of player, so, again, Garry's got a position, nothing special. We'll look forward to the middle game to see how things evolve. I'd also like to strengthen what Michael had said earlier, and that is to say, it's interesting why the computer programs do enjoy putting a high valuation on bishops.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: I am one of those people who have always enjoyed playing with the knights, and it can really annoy my opponent, this imbalance of knight vs. Bishop, very, very difficult strategy to try to explain. But in a nutshell, in closed positions the knights do wonders. In open positions the bishops do wonders.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: So the computer program really does like to keep its bishops and the move h6 --

Mr. VALVO: Other than h6, would you say that this has been a successful opening for black?

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Indeed I would be very satisfied if I were black in this particular opening.

Mr. ASHLEY: And now it looks like all the kid gloves are off. (Laughter.) Because here's comes the queen. Qa5. Queen to a5. Deep Blue has brought out the major piece in the chess game, the queen as we all know is the most powerful piece, moves in all sorts of directions. Right now we have put an interesting feature that Fritz has, which is to show the threatened squared, and at the moment the colors are all green and yellow which means that there's not too much for Kasparov to worry about threatened in his position. He's leaning back now, starting to make some faces. You want to pay attention to that. He was a little bit surprised it seems by the move and now he's calmly played a2-a3.

Mr. ASHLEY: And one now has to wonder, his watch is still up -- don't worry, there's nothing left to think about, he won't put the drawback on until the game is either a clear job or he's done the job.

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