Kasparov vs. Deep Junior live in ESPN
06.02.2003 The cable sports network is going to provide live coverage of the sixth game of the Kasparov-Deep Junior match on Friday! They are sending a crew to the New York Athletic Club to transmit the game. This is a big first and the first live national TV coverage of a chess event since Fischer-Spassky. In 1995, ESPN broadcast packaged spots on the Kasparov-Anand match, but they were produced by the PCA. This time around ESPN itself is footing the substantial bill. 
 (From the ChessBase web site.) 

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 (I  recorded the entire above broadcast,   and I hope to later provide a blow-by-blow of some of  the  better 
  comments and observations of such luminaries as   the  better comments and observations of such luminaries 
  as:  GM Yasser Seirawan  and  GM Maurice Ashley.)  

  My take on this game?  

I watched this game LIVE on TV, (See the box, above.); and I also dialed in Chess.FM and monitored the game on ICC. It was very exciting. Kasparov was Black, and played the Najdorf Variation, for the first time in this match. The machine, (and its team who prepared it); ducked the sharpest lines, preferring to use Be2 instead of the more complicated lines that follow Bg5. 

Deep Junior - once again - played the opening in a nearly pathetic manner, giving Garry many chances. Garry himself avoided some the sharpest lines, preferring to continue to maneuver on his 18th move. The computer played many weird and seemingly random moves. (Kh1, h3, Bf3, and a later g3, N/b3-d2 and then back to b3.) While not causing the computer's position to immediately fall apart, these moves were hardly impressive. Eventually Kasparov - perhaps emboldened by the computer's seeming waste of time - decides to cash in his chips and sacrifice on c3. Then - if the reports are to be believed - he immediately offered a draw ... which was rejected by the Deep Junior Team!! 

GM Lev Alburt said Garry had "No losing possibilities. He said there was a 50% chance that Garry would win, and another 50% chance Garry would draw." 

The contestants played on for several more moves, and just when it looked like Garry would run away with the game ... they shook hands and called it a draw. 

In the post game conference, Garry confirmed what GM M. Ashley had been saying all day, that Kasparov had been spooked, and was just too nervous to play. Garry also admitted that he had overlooked the maneuver Bishop at e3 to c1! (Intending Ba3.) He said that after this oversight, he had lost confidence in his position. (My computer analysis after f4 indicates the game is probably equal anyway.)

To all the commentators who were calling Garry chicken, I want to point out it is very easy to be an armchair quarterback, but it is a different story altogether to be on the field and looking at some big monster - who runs as fast as you do - getting ready to 'pile-drive' you into the earth. It would also have cost Garry a quarter of a million dollars, (the difference between a win and a loss); to play on and possibly lose.