Search - Game Over - Kasparov and the Machine on DVD

IBM's Heartbreak Hotel

J. Swift | New Castle, IN United States | 07/31/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD is a good rental. But there was a lot of things that bothered me in it. The journalist that said he was manhandled by IBM security and locked in a room and not allowed to leave until they questioned him about some Internet report. I found that very hard to believe and was wondering why he didnt file kidnapping charges and sue IBM. Its not everyday that a rich corporation kidnaps people, Im sure he would have got a huge settlement.

Kasparov throws temper tantrums and acts like a big baby when he loses. He accuses people of cheating, when the DVD although very one sided in favor of Kasparov shows no evidence that the Deep Blue Team cheated. Some computer programs play positional chess, I know that Hiarcs is a famous engine that does. Did they cheat? I dont know but I sure wasnt convinced that they did. With a computer engine that runs 50,000,000 positions a second, should we really be surprised when it makes a good move.

I wasnt in to Chess when the match took place in 97. I remember some things in the news but I couldnt recall who won the series of games. I was pulling for Kasparov to begin with, but by the end of the documentary I was glad he lost. He was made out to be some Flash Gordon "Savior of humanity" against the evil computer. But in reality he is a selfish, childish, arrogant, guy who happens to be great at Chess.

Why was they trying to act like this Deep Blue match made him lose to Kramnik and Karpov five years later? Does Kasparov get to blame every mistake he makes on this ancient history matchup with the computer? If we could all have such a scapegoat.

I think this movie is worth watching. It brings up some interesting questions about man and technology. Personally I dont think losing to a machine is any disgrace. Deep Blue was space age. If they created a robot who could K.O. the Heavyweight Champion of the world or outrun the Olympic sprinters would it really change anything? I dont think so, championships should always be people against people. But it sure is cool to take on the computers every now and then."

Great Story, but poor execution

Jeffrey A. Thompson | Iowa City, IA USA | 07/06/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The movie had an interesting story to tell, but it had poor execution. The movie began with a narrator whispering about how IBM's stock rose 15% after the match because Deep Blue won. The whispering was just annoying. The movie had several pointless scenes. It had Kasparov going back to the rooms of his matches with computers and Karpov. Kasparov then described the room. It really did not help explain anything. Another point, they took you to where Deep Blue was now. Or rather, they took you to where one half of Deep Blue resided. It was two machines. One was at the Smithsonian and the other was at an IBM building. The camera took you to a locked clean room at the IBM building and showed you the locked computer. The operations guy did not have a key for the computer. The camera turned and showed a computer that was turned on. Trust me, I'm in IT. A large unix computer is boring. A turned off computer is even more boring. There are no moving parts. Dead space.

The good parts of the movie is that you have interviews with Kasparov and the IBM team. Kasparov is a charming guy. The IBM team are open and friendly. The movie shows both the bad and good sides of Kasparov, who displays dignity and his temper when he is being pushed around by IBM. The Deep Blue team are interesting, but the IBM company does not come off well. They milk the match for all advertising they could get. The movie keeps touting that it was a victory of machine intelligence over Man, but the point I get from it is, several computer geeks and chess grand masters after years of effort can put together a program that can barely beat a world champion, if they take every single psychological and technical advantage they can. The program is tuned to beat just one man. Since there is no rematch, the whole thing is pointless.

It is an interesting story, but the director choose to tell it in a very unskilled and obtrusive manner.
"

No Chess. No Computers. Heavy Handed Direction. Yuck.

Ray Salemi | Framingham, MA USA | 07/26/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I had rented Game Over with high hopes. I enjoy chess and I'm in the computer industry. I figured how could I lose? Well, I did.

This is a 30 minute documentary crammed in 85 minutes. It's basic point is that Deep Blue made a strategic move in game two (of six) that Kasparov didn't think was possible for a machine. This move so distressed him that he resigned from a drawn position.

Then over the next four games he drove himself into such a tizzy that he made a simple blunder in Game 6 and lost. The computer hadn't even started computing when he resigned, it was still simply reading the moves out of a chess opening book.

On the other side, the IBM team decided that somehow having an enormous team of people design a computer that can beat a single man in a single six game tournament was the be all and end all of life. They come across as petty and foolish. In the end they complain that Kasparov had drained all the fun out of winning.

So I guess we all learned a lesson about sportsmanship, eh?

This movie's only redeeming feature is that it showed that Deep Blue didn't really beat Kasparov. He beat himself. If he hadn't resigned a drawn position in Game 2 the match would have ended in a draw. In addition if he had kept control of his emotions he probably would have won the whole thing.

Of course, the IBM team probably knew this when they refused a rematch and it was another instance where they came off looking like jerks.

I could have given this movie two stars if it weren't for the awful direction. The director cut so sporadically between shots that I was forced to turn my head away to avoid dizziness several times. That, along with the repetitive footage and melodramatic music made this a dreadful experience."

The Ego meets his match: the Mega-Corp

Robert Coleman | New Orleans | 05/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A thoroughly entertaining (if slanted) look at the #1 rated chess player's 2nd match with IBM's Deep Blue computer program. This documentary explores Kasparov's accusation that the IBM's human team of programmers and chess grandmasters helped the machine defeat him in the crucial game 2 of the match (after that Garry's fighting spirit was broken and he subsequently lost the match). While not presenting any new hard evidence that the win was human assisted, it does lay out a fairly damning case. I'm familiar with computer chess programs and their style of play and I have to agree with the film's assertion that Deep Blue's game 2 "strategic" moves were anomalous. IBM would not let anyone review DB's data logs from the match, they refused a re-match (standard practice in professional chess), and the company then disassembled the machine. You don't need to know anything about chess or computers to enjoy the film, but if you play chess you'll definitely want to see this!"