Checkmate: How Computer Chess Changed the World

Not long ago, the idea of a computer beating a human at chess was the stuff of science fiction. But some of the most creative programmers of the 1980s and 90s were determined to make it a reality. And they did. In two matches that riveted the world, Deep Blue, the IBM supercomputer, took on the brilliant world chess champion Garry Kasparov, and finally the computer won. The program begins with a secret screening of a feature film that will have its New York premiere in June—a darkly comic, fictional take on those early programming efforts, which won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance—and is followed by a fascinating discussion with some of the real-life programmers and chess masters involved in the epic match-up between man and machine.