Famous Days for Students of English

11-05-1997

In 1996, IBM built a supercomputer. They approached the world champion, Garry Kasparov, to play chess against their computer. They put a lot of money into the development, hired the best chess players, and great programmers.

The first match between Kasparov and the computer started on February 10, 1996, in Philadelphia. The computer was capable of analyzing millions of moves per second. It surprised the world champion and won the first game.

The world champion’s loss to a machine was a historic moment at the time. However, other games showed that it was an early loss. Kasparov won three of the five remaining games. Two ended in a draw and Kasparov won the whole match 4-2.

A year later, in May 1997, the eagerly awaited rematch began. They were going to play six games again.

IBM had improved their computer. There was a draw before the final and decisive sixth game. The sixth game was played on May 11 and the computer won, thus winning the whole match.

It was a big success for IBM. They used media interest in the computer’s victory over a human to increase their sales.

Difficult words: supercomputer (an extremely powerful computer), remaining (what is left to do), draw (a result when both players have the same number of points), eagerly (with excitement), awaited (waited for), decisive (having a big effect on the result), thus (therefore).