Kasparov and Deep Blue: The Historic Chess Match Between Man and Machine

This is a very good book, but I think Bruce a mistake. I am not gonna really tell you inside this book.

This is one of my favorite chess books. Pandolfini gives a move by move account of all six games of the match. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates overly-annotated chess games. Pandolfini gives explanation to nearly every move, even the first few moves of openings, which I admit may be too elementary for advanced players, but could be appreciated the novice for the detail. The notation is good, typesetting is pleasing to the eye, and pictures are used at critical junctures. Pandolfini also does a nice job at inserting extra tid-bits of interesting information now and then relative to the topic at hand.

Pandolfini annotates practically every move of the six games of Kasparov's match loss to Deep Blue (I thought it was called "Deeper Blue"). This is book is written at a fairly basic level. He explains a lot of basic chess terms, such as open files and pinned pieces. All told, the book is interesting for those who want a record of the event, but it's not really instructive. It's also not a great value with only 6 games, though it does provide the game scores (no annotation) of the first match which K. won.Pandolfini makes some questionable comments - such as calling K. the "last human world champion" - and isn't afraid to express his opinion. He thinks that Kasparov would have won if he'd only played his own game instead of trying to get cute with anti-computer moves.There's no behind-the-scenes repoortage, nor much here about the technology behind Deep Blue. I think Panda might have written it on his couch from reading the games scores in the newspaper.

As a beginning chess player who's returned to the game after a thirty-nine year lapse since high school, I found this book an good introduction to the thinking involved in tournament level play. It made chess commentaries seem exciting, whereas they'd never seemed so before. The author's clear exposition of the problems facing the players on each move, and the book's well organized format, made this the first collection of chess games to lead me to take up a board and follow along. :-) Chess diagrams are inserted at critical points in each of the six games of the match, and informative mini essays appear in highlighted boxes throughout the text. The game records are written in easily interpreted short algebraic notation. Only the knowledge which can be gained from any brief introduction to chess is presumed, and even that's not mandatory.Over the years, I sometimes glanced through chess books on bookstore and library shelves, but most appeared somewhat tedious, certainly not suitable for leisure study. Bruce Pandolfini's description of Garry Kasparov's performance as John Henry against IBM's Deep Blue steam hammer is an exception to that pattern.

Bruce Pandolfini does an excellent job taking you step-by-step through the games between Kasparov and Deep Blue. He has a good comment explaining just about every move.This is a great book for the beginner or intermediate player. It shows what goes on in a Grandmaster's mind when playing.I wish he wrote more about Deep Blue itself, but he actually said very little about it.