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February 11, 1996
Web posted at: 10:15 p.m. EST
(CNN) -- Thousands of computer chess fans were left outside the "virtual stadium" Sunday as they tried to make their way to the Garry Kasparov versus "Deep Blue" chess match.
IBM's Internet chess page, which offered computer users a view of the man-against-machine competition, was overwhelmed by Web surfers attempting to enter the "grandstand."
"We're trying to keep standing up under the onslaught, but there was no way to predict a response this big," said Carol Moore, director of IBM's homepage.
Moore said IBM had expected no more than 200,000 computer users to "hit" the Web site in one day, but they topped 2 million on the first day Saturday and it was expected to increase Sunday.
Persistence was needed to gain entrance both days, although Moore said her system granted entrance to 3,600 new users every minute with an infinite number able to take a place in the grandstand once inside.
"Error messages" were common, and it took dozens of attempts for many people.
IBM was unable to load almost-real-time images of the chess game onto the page because of the heavy traffic, but those who made it onto the page could read a running commentary from Maurice Ashley, an international master from the United States.
Computer users with enough patience and luck could also view a chess board that displayed the moves, although it usually took dozens of attempts to reload the page to update the positions of the chess pieces.
Some people who had been frustrated Saturday logged onto the IBM page several hours before Sunday's game was scheduled to start to make sure they had a view of it.
Kasparov, a 32-year-old Russian, is the world chess champion. He lost to "Deep Blue" on Saturday in the first of their six- game match, but rebounded Sunday to even the six-game series, 1-1.
"Deep Blue" is a 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP high performance computer capable of considering 200 million possible chess moves per second, according to the company. A team of IBM programmers spent six years developing a processor chip for chess calculations.
In 1989, Kasparov defeated "Deep Thought," IBM's prototype for "Deep Blue."
Kasparov has plenty of incentive to win. Besides carrying the banner for the human race in battle for supremacy over computers, he could win the $400,000 first prize. He would get $100,000 for losing.
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