Commentary for white move 14:

Mr. FREIDEL: This is Garry "I have to make a edition" and he's trying to make a decision, very important. He has two choices, he has to make one.

Mr. ASHLEY: And indeed as the time ticks way, -- ticks away, that is another factor, the computer doesn't get tired, doesn't need to go to the bathroom, doesn't get nervous, it just goes on and it might as well be move one or move 31, it really doesn't make a difference. Kasparov, though, the tension level is rising inside him as he realizes that he could make a mistake here and spoil what's been a great position, and then being down 1-0 with white. That would be awful for him. So Kasparov has to make up his mind. That shaking of the head, though, is not a confident Kasparov.

Mr. VALVO: His tie is loose, too.

Mr. SEIRAWAN: Now he's made a move --

Mr. ASHLEY: He made the move Kd1 h1 which is a cautious move. The question is will he get up from the board? I don't think so /UFPLT.

Mr. VALVO: He expects bishop g5 right away, I'm sure.

Mr. ASHLEY: He's starting to shake a little bit. If you saw the camera show that characteristic leg shake of chess players, when your leg -- your leg starts going a mile a minute, and you can see there that he is not a patient man.

Mr. VALVO: Have you been talking to the director?

Mr. ASHLEY: Look at Kasparov, he's shaking his head, he's not happy at all, and this I've seen in a situation where -- oh, Frideric is not feeling good right now. (Laughter.) You can see it in Kasparov's face. Kasparov would be so bad at poker, it's unbelievable. (Laughter.)

Mr. ASHLEY: And this could be a devastating situation if he manages to lose this, but still it doesn't look so critical, not at the moment, and Deep Blue certainly doesn't think that it's just winning, or else it would have played a long time ago, so one has to imagine, what is going on in these two marvelous chess minds.

Mr. VALVO: If Deep Blue had only played right away, it guessed what the move was. It didn't expect. It probably expected Re2 like you suggested. AUDIENCE MEMBER: It might wait to sit on it. It's got plenty of time.

Mr. ASHLEY: A comment was made in the audience that Deep Blue has plenty of time so it might as well sit on the position a while. But that doesn't motivate Deep Blue at all. What motivates Deep Blue is whether or not it sees a move that's reasonable. Once it sees it it's not going to sit. I know that is a technique that human players will use. I know that if I get an opponent in time ssure I'll wait a little while and let them suffer in that time ssure. But Deep Blue is not thinking in those kind of psychological terms.

Mr. SEIRAWAN:

Mr. VALVO: I have a question for you, Frideric, how many pounds does Garry lose in a game?

Mr. FREIDEL: About two pounds.

Mr. VALVO: You were going to say something? I'm sorry.

Mr. FREIDEL: Yeah. Deep Blue starts to think means that Kasparov hasn't played the best move, according to Deep Blue. If he played the best move, according to Deep Blue, it would play very quick. So it means, you know -- it's bad. (Laughter.) The problem is he gets time to think now on his opponent's time.

Mr. ASHLEY: But you mean the best move in Deep Blue's estimation?

Mr. FREIDEL: Yes, absolutely.

Mr. ASHLEY: So strategically it may have played a best move, but if Deep Blue didn't feel -- if it's estimation of the best move -- I'm sorry, it has played the move the bishop from e7 to g5 setting up an annoying pin that Kasparov will not be able to solve for a couple of moves. The alignment of the bishop on g5 attacking the knight on e3, protecting the queen from c1, an alignment called a pin in chess, for those of us who don't know that terminology, it's a pin. And Kasparov has now played quickly the move I suggested earlier, Re2, and he wishes to solve the problem of the pin by moving his queen at c1 along the back rank maybe to e1 or maybe even to g1, it seems is Kasparov's idea, setting up some other interesting tax ticks, but he is not moving away from the board. He realizes that this is a critical situation, and the jacket might come off real soon.

Mr. VALVO: You know, I was thinking that he has to break the pin real fast because black could play Nc5xd3, and the Rd3 could win a pawn.

Mr. ASHLEY: There are threats in this position indeed. This knight could get to c5 and then maybe a sacrifice to allow the rook to penetrate into the d3 square to attack the knight. It seems Kasparov is going to solve that problem --

Mr. VALVO: Get out of the way right now.

Mr. ASHLEY: Right, get out of the way right away. That is the idea I'm sure in Kasparov's mind. And then Deep Blue will have to look at some dynamic way to take advantage of just the setting, but it seems as if Kasparov has everything under control -- as I say that he's gotten up from the board.

Mr. VALVO: Maybe he does.

Mr. ASHLEY: He's gotten up from the board. So maybe he feels that everything is okay and it's not as bad as he thought it was.

Mr. FREIDEL: The head shaking was -- meant something different. It meant I should have played something else, which was better than what I did.

Mr. ASHLEY: Right. That's quite possible.

Mr. FREIDEL: It wasn't "Y this is a mistake," but "Oh, God, why didn't I play that"?

Mr. VALVO: Is he pleased with his opinion right now?

Mr. FREIDEL: I don't think he's pleased.

Mr. ASHLEY: A very hard thing, what you're talking about, a very hard thing for a chess player and particularly a purist, someone who really wants to play excellent games, as Garry Kasparov wants every single one of his games to be a work of art, a real production, to play a move that's inferior to something else he could have played and you're sitting there thinking oh, dummy you should have played that, trying to get that out of your mind, you have thoughts like "maybe I'll lose now" or "what did I do" and usually mistakes come in twos in chess. You don't just make one, once you've made one, you make another. And in a situation like that it could be deadly. Let's field some more questions from the audience, please. We have one right here. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Assuming that all the top grandmasters know all there is to know about chess, what is it that pushes like a Kasparov or a Fischer over the edge and makes them the best?

Mr. ASHLEY: Well, that initial sentence was probably a little off. Grandmasters don't know everything there is to know about chess. There's so much to learn. Every single day is work, work, work, to learn more and more. And Kasparov simply knows more than everyone else.

Mr. VALVO: It's personality -- AUDIENCE MEMBER: So you think it's basically more knowledge than possibly intimidation, seeing him across the board, as --

Mr. VALVO: It's got more to do with personality. The worst to ever play Garry is when he's lost a game in a vious round. You don't want to play Garry then. He'll beat God!

Mr. FREIDEL: That's correct. Can I answer that, to a certain degree? About ten years ago or 12 years ago Kasparov and Karpov and a few others had a monopoly on chess knowledge. They had their teams and they knew very much more -- we have a move, I think. AUDIENCE MEMBER: a4.

Mr. FREIDEL: a4.

Mr. ASHLEY: A very interesting, seeming pawn sacrifice, but this move is a very aggressive one, and what's interesting about the move is that if Kasparov were to take this pawn -- several weaknesses associates with this move. First of all his pawn is on the -- pawns on the left side of the board would be weak as ever.

Mr. VALVO: Right side is stronger.

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