Machines Crush Humans at Bilbao

In Bilbao in Norwest Spain the man v. machine contest looks like a debacle for the carbon based crew. Look at the matches: Kasimzhanov v. Hydra, Khalifman v. Fritz 9, and Ponomariov v. Deep Junior. All three humans lost. Kasim had a great attack against Hydra with a King's Indian. Then, to quote Chessbase, "The battle soon revolved around the question of which would be the most formidable – Hydra’s pressure on the Q-side or Kasimzhanov’s K-side attack. The program did not appear to have any sort of plan, other than securing a strong looking knight on b5, which eyed the black pawn on a7 and thereby tied Kazim’s a8 rook to a defensive role. Meanwhile Kasim’s K-side attack grew more and more menacing, until eventually there were six, yes SIX Black pieces bearing down on the white king: two rooks, the queen, two bishops and a knight. Black’s only problem appeared to be that in order to bring the sixth of these pieces into the attack, Kasim had to move his a8 rook away from the defence of the a7 pawn, allowing Hydra to capture that pawn. Then all hell broke loose on the K-side, as Kasim completed the advance of his g-pawn, leading to a position with a semi open g-file on which he had already piled up his queen and both rooks in an attempt to break through with a mating attack. But even as Black’s pieces were springing to life and approaching Hydra’s king, move after move Hydra was seen to have magical resources to fend off the attack and to encroach into the heart of Black’s position. The more Kasim tried to prosecute his attack against Hydra’s king, the more hopeless it seemed for Black. Eventually it became clear that Hydra’s judgement had been correct, and the capture of the a7 pawn was sound. After the game Kasim discussed the possibility of delaying the rook move from a8, preparing his attack for a few more moves and only then giving up the a7 pawn. But that is an idea for another day." You can find the games over at Chessbase site.