Computer beats world chess champion, moving on to poker and go

Well, it appears that our days as a species of lording supreme in the world of chess have pretty definitively come to an end. A six-game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik (pictured), the reigning world chess champion, and the computer Deep Fritz, has just concluded. Kramnik lost, 4-2 to the multi-processor version of Chessbase's commercial software in Bonn, Germany. (To Kramnik's credit, in 2002, he'd held Deep Fritz to a draw.) However, this match may end interest in further advancing the field of chess-playing computers, according to Monty Newborn, a professor of computer science at McGill University. Newborn, one of the people who organized the match, told The New York Times: "I don't know what one could get out of it at this point. The science is done." But don't think the story ends there, as Newborn added: "If you are interested in programming computers so that they compete in games, the two interesting ones are poker and go. That is where the action is." So watch out, World Series of Poker card sharks, there's about to be a digital throwdown comin' your way.