Humans still play the better ideas. Kasparov had the better positions in 4 of the 6 games, his ...Qa1+ in Game 3 prob. cost him a win in the match. Kramink got carried away (human emotion) and made a piece sac that cost him a game he otherwise had a clear advtange in. Computers are not "out-playing" the humans they are simply waiting for humans to make mistakes, that is not superiority.

In this final game. After the exchange sacrifice 23...Rxc3! (which must be correct) 24. bxc3 Bxe4 25. Bc1! Bxg2 26. Kxg2

Black had an alternative here.
Fritz seems to like 26...d5!? this takes away the planned pressure against d6 and opens up the diagnol for blacks bishop. However after 27. f4 Bd6 28. fxe5 Bxe5 black has an isolated d-pawn with weaknesses of his own- probably not what most GM's envisioned when they liked the exchange sac. I let Frtiz 8 look at it overnight though and after 7 hours of thought considers black to have a slight edge. A draw looks likely.

Analysis by Fritz 8:

(-0.34): 27.f4 Bd6 28.fxe5 Bxe5 29.Nd4 Rc4 30.Nf5 Bxc3 31.Ne7+ Kh7 32.Nxd5 Nxd5 33.Rxd5 Nc5 34.Kf3 Nxa4 35.Rd7 Kg6

White could also try in this line:
(-0.09): 27.Bb2 Bd6 28.Nd2 b5 29.axb5 axb5 30.Nf3 Re8 31.Ra1 Rb8 32.Ra6 Nb6 33.Nd2

After the GAME continuation 26...Rxc3 27. f4 and Lev Alburt's 27...f6 intending to centralize the king by marching it to e6 and unraveling then black pieces, Fritz was inclined to try and exchange rooks, something black certainly does not want to do.

After 28. Rd3 Rc4 I let Fritz look at this for over an hour and he favors black in the following lines:

Analysis by Fritz 8:

1. (-0.44): 30.a5 Kf7 31.axb6 Nxb6 32.Na5 Ra4 33.Nc6 Nc4 34.Bb4 a5 35.Bc3 Nc7 36.fxe5 fxe5

2. (-0.62): 30.fxe5 fxe5 31.a5 Kf7 32.Rf2+ Ke6 33.Re2 g6 34.Nd4+ Kf7 35.Nb3 e4 36.Rf2+ Nef6 37.Rd1 d5

coxchess...

How is capitalizing on someones mistakes not outplaying them?

How are you not "superior" when you are realizing your opponent is making mistakes?

Think about it, thats right, you make no sense.

I don't know why every halfwit reporter on CNN has decided the fate of humanity rests on Kasparov, when millions of people have been losing against computers since the first Chessmaster 1000 probably rolled off the production line in 1986. The fact that only 1 : 1,000,000,000 people in the world can stand up to these supercomputers should be a clear enough sign that they are superior.

We must note that all these are basically elaborate, written computer instructions. That being the case, then I believe that we can assume that their performances should all be of identical quality in any of their chess games.

If these programs are superior to the human being and they perform with complete consistency, then they should be winning every single game that they play against any human being, however, that is clearly not the case---if we total the scores from the recent three man vs. machine matches, the result is +3-3=12. An equal score (a fortunate one at that, since it appears that at least two human losses were the result of careless mistakes), with 3 losses after 18 serious tries definitely does not prove superiority. In fact, even Robert Huebner, a substantially lower-rated and older player, held an even score with a Fritz program in a short match a few years ago.

"How is capitalizing on someones mistakes not outplaying them?"

I think you missed my point. Human players are still getting the better positions in many of these games because of "superior" ideas. By outplaying I simply mean computers are not playing "superior" plans and ideas, they are waiting for tactical errors. If understood in context it makes perfect sense.

As for the future of Man vs. Machine:

Computers benefit greatly from established theory developed by human players, and databases compiled from human players games. I suggest we let the GM's play "Advanced Chess" where they can use a computer to check their analyses. Human ingenuity plus the use of a computer will beat the machine alone in many of these games. I think eventually when the computers become so strong they are beating the GM's regularly that will be forced upon us.

On the other hand computers are a good learning tool for training, analyzing and preparing for games.

This noble sport endured for thousands of years, until one day the TRAIN was invented... and later, the AUTOMOBILE. But did this destroy track and field events? Of course not!!

The computer play can be reduced to calculation and evaluation: if they are able to defeat the humans (one, two or else ten exceptions mean nothing) is because they surely calculate better, but also because they evaluate better (than Grand Masters!).

However, the point of my previous statement was that computers are not yet superior to humans at chess simply because our finest, most serious, and dedicated players can still hold their own when playing them. Chess is an ancient game invented by humans, and we only created computers a few decades ago, therefore the burden of proof is on the computers to demonstrate without a doubt that they are superior to us, not vice versa, and so far they have not done that (they can crush less-skilled players, just as less-skilled players can crush less powerful or "cheap" chess computers, but at the present time their best do not seem able to beat our best).