Kasparov vs Deep Blue, 1997

How do you make a computer blink?

They said it couldn't happen. They said computers would never understand its complexities and stood no chance of ever being able to compete at the top, but computer scientists ignored the critics and in 1947 began their quest to program a computer to learn chess and to hopefully one day beat the world's strongest human player. After numerous failed attempts over the next 50 years of computers trying to beat the top human players, IBM joined in on the fun, and in May of 1997, IBM's six foot tall super computer, named "Deep Blue", which could calculate 200 million chess positions per second, played a six game match against the strongest human player at that time, Garry Kasparov, with 1 million dollars of prize money on the line. It was thrillingly close, with Kasparov winning a beautiful tactical victory in game one, but losing game two in a positional squeeze. Games 3, 4, & 5 were drawn. After one week of intense five hour games, Kasparov's nerves of steel finally cracked in game six after Deep Blue sacrificed a Knight to rip lines open against Kasparov's exposed & weakened king. On the 19th move, with his position utterly in ruins, and while news cameras from around the world focused on his head shaking in disbelief, Kasparov resigned. The 50 year quest came to an end.