MIND VS. MACHINE

The true story of a historic chess match between the world champion and a supercomputer.

It’s May 3, 1997. Garry Kasparov has been the world chess champion for almost 12 years. Today, he’ll play the first of six games against Deep Blue, a new supercomputer built by experts from IBM. Around the world, millions of people, both chess fans and others, follow the livestreamed action which features commentary by co-author Ashley, the first African American Grandmaster. Ashley also appears in the book in a framing narrative set in a present-day Brooklyn park. In these interstitial scenes, he explains the history of chess and contextualizes Kasparov’s historic match to eager young chess players. Characters from both 1997 and today contemplate the fearsome power of technology, and the book compares anxiety around Deep Blue to modern concerns about AI. While Kasparov wants “to be the man who will save our pride. Human pride,” the Deep Blue team of Joel Benjamin, Murray Campbell, and Feng-Hsiung Hsu is eager for the computer to triumph; they feel as if everyone is against them except their “fellow computer nerds.” The high stakes of the chess match come through not only in Sheinkin and Ashley’s tight text and dramatic dialogue but also in the full-color illustrations. Pham creates suspense by changing the amount of time that passes between frames, exaggerating pauses between chess moves, and varying the focus of the panels.

A timely, edge-of-your-seat read that’s equally riveting for chess players and nonplayers alike.