The one-million dollar match between former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and the Israeli-programmed world computer champion Deep Junior has been postponed until December, the president of the World Chess Federation, or FIDE, announced.
”We regret the delay, but all of the parties involved have agreed that there was not enough time to give such a prestigious event the required presentation,” FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said on Monday in a press release from Kasparov’s agent.
The six-game match had been scheduled to be held from October 1-13 in Jerusalem. The match is now slated to start on December 1. It would be Kasparov’s first public match against a computer since his stunning loss to IBM’s Deep Blue machine in 1997.
Kasparov won his first match against Deep Blue in 1996.
Deep Junior won the World Computer Chess Championships in the Netherlands earlier this year. ”Deep” is used to refer to programs that run on multiprocessors.
”I’ve waited five years for my revenge, so what is two more months?” said Kasparov, who will lead the Russian team in the Chess Olympiad that starts on October 25.
Deep Junior’s Israeli programmers, Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky, also sounded patient. ”We have always dreamed of taking on the world’s top player and Deep Junior will not mind the delay at all,” they were quoted as saying.
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert said his city was looking forward to hosting ”a world-class event between two great champions.”
The Deep Blue program, the first to defeat a reigning world champion, has been canceled by IBM and is no longer available for competition.
Kasparov lost his world title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik. – Sapa-AP