NEW YORK, May 12: Faced with impregnable defence and uninhibited attack from a computer endowed with humongous calculating power, world chess champion Garry Kasparov showed human frailty as he cracked under pressure and lost the final game in a contest billed as a man vs machine face-off.

Kasparov resigned on the 19th move in just an hour to hand Deep Blue, the 6 feet 5 inch, 1.4 ton computer, a victory on Sunday and a place in chess and computing history. Perhaps, a place in the history of mankind and civilisation too.

The development was greeted with astonished gasps and disbelief from nearly 500 chess and computer aficionados and also scores of Grandmasters and chess hacks who packed into a Manhattan auditorium and followed the seminal event with fanatical zeal each day over the last week.

The contest was tied 2.5-2.5 after five games with each side having won one game and drawn three. Deep Blue was playing white and Kasparov black in today's final game.

Kasparov came out aggressively and played the Caro-Kann defense with which he has often intimidated human opponents. Deep Blue called his bluff and whipped him with a counter attack that wowed many GMs for its guile and cunning.

Kasparov looked to be in trouble as early as the 10th move after what appeared to be a slight miscalculation. By the 15th move, he was clutching his head and by the 17th, shaking it in despair. He looked like he was going to burst into tears and often cast helpless looks at his mother, Klara Kasparov, and his team.

He finally resigned abruptly and stormed out, stunning everyone. No one could recall when he last lost a match in less than 20 moves and in under an hour. Besides, he has never lost before to anyone -- man or machine -- in a one-on-one series.

Soon after, Kasparov arrived at a teeming press conference looking in turns shell-shocked, angry and miserable.

He proceeded to rave and rant against IBM (Deep Blue manufacturers and the sponsors of the tournament), virtually accusing them of cheating.

Kasparov’s main grouse – and something which many observers agreed -- was that he had to play with a handicap.

The computer knew all his previous games and his style, but he was not allowed to access to the computer’s games or style of play.

In chess, knowledge of an opponent’s game history is considered crucial.

Glowering at the victorious Deep Blue team seated across, he also hinted darkly that they had manipulated the computer to change style and tactics during the games and the contest.

‘‘I personally assure you that if it starts to play competitive chess, I will tear it to pieces,’’ Kasparov railed, virtually demanding a rematch and suggesting that if IBM had guts, they should enter Deep Blue into regular tournaments.

‘‘It is probably a historical moment. But I would not call it a day of the doom,’’ he said in a calmer moment, still vowing revenge.

Chess analysts however said the whole series boiled down to Kasparov’s preparation: he went into the game expecting the computer to play in a particular style and come up with typically computer-like responses.

Instead, probably because of its immense computer power, Deep Blue came up with magnificent answers that were almost human in their depths, subtlety and strategic skill.

Despite an avowedly pro-human sentiment among the live audience and in much of the sentient world, some of Deep Blue’s moves evoked awe and applause.

At least once, even Kasparov acknowledged that the machine seemed to have ‘‘intelligence’’.

This was most evident in the fifth game on Saturday. Playing white and with his best chance for a win before the last game, Kasparov threw the kitchen sink at Deep Blue.

To the excitement of the crowd, he had the computer on the run with a passed pawn that looked certain to become a Queen and decimate the machine.

While everything -- that is, normal human response -- pointed to black defending and blocking that powerful white pawn, the computer reached down and conjured up an incredible counter attack out of the Blue! -- that forced Kasparov to defend.

This happened time and again in the series.

Each time it looked in trouble, Deep Blue came up with tenacious defences and turned it into effervescent attacks that was unnerving. Itself having no nerve, it was oblivious to all that the human mind conspired.

In the end, Kasparov’s spirit sagged.

He lost because he was human and the computer was a number-crunching automaton.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.