1997: Computers Win
In 1989 a team of engineers from Carnegie Mellon were hired on by IBM with the mission of creating a computer capable of beating the World Chess Champion. That champion was Garry Kasparov, the man who had said "...there is still a long way to go before a human on his or her best day is unable to defeat the best computer". And indeed, in 1989, Garry Kasparov defeated IBM's "Deep Thought" computer in a 6 game match. The next version, "Deep Blue" also fell to Kasparov in 1996. But in the 1997 rematch, Deep Blue, the machine capable of evaluating 200 million chess positions per second, defeated Kasparov 3.5 to 2.5. Today's modern chess engines can easily defeat Deep Blue because, while they cannot calculate as many positions, they evaluate more efficiently and accurately. Computers today are far superior to humans. The top human is rated 2881, while the top computer is rated at 3274.
