About National Chess Day
National Chess Day is recognized on the second Saturday in October, and serious, casual, young, and old players are encouraged to get together on this day and play this great game with an ancient and illustrious history!
Former U.S. President Gerald Ford announced and designated National Chess Day on October 9, 1976.
The first computer chess victory over a human came on February 10th 1996 when IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 34 moves in Philadelphia, PA —the first such victory by a computer in tournament conditions. Kasparov, however, went on to win the tournament, defeating the computer three times (the other two matches were draws). In May 1997, in a six-game rematch, Deep Blue emerged the overall victor. Deep Blue, an RS/6000 supercomputer, can evaluate 200 million chess positions a second but is not capable of using artificial intelligence to "learn." Kasparov was reigning World Chess Champion from 1985 to 2000.
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