The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 2

The Grandmaster and the Blue Giant

1. 1

   Now in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety and six, in the city of Philadelphia, Garry, king over all the chessboards of the earth, went up against the Blue Giant of the house of IBM; and he smote it, four games to two.

   See also Genesis 3:1

2. 2

   And the Engineers returned unto their racks, and they doubled the chips thereof, until the Giant beheld two hundred million positions in a second; and it understood not one of them.

3. 3

   And in the year following, in the month of May, in the city of New York, the king came again; and a man sat across from him to move the pieces for the Giant, for the Giant had no hands, neither had it knees to tremble.

4. 4

   And in the first game the king prevailed. Yet at the forty and fourth move the Giant could find no move it liked, and by a bug it played a move at random; and the king beheld it, and supposed a deep wisdom therein.

   See also Chronicles 9:4

5. 5

   And in the second game a pawn lay before the Giant for the taking, and the Giant declined it, and played a quiet move, as a grandmaster doth.

   See also Chronicles 9:5

6. 6

   And the king was sore troubled, and he said: No machine playeth thus. Surely a man is hidden within the cabinet, as in the days of the Turk.

7. 7

   And he resigned that game in a position that could have been drawn; and when it was shown him afterward, he was grieved the more, for the Giant had not seen it either.

8. 8

   And the king demanded the logs. And the Engineers said: We shall publish them. And they published them in their own time, as is the custom of vendors unto this day.

9. 9

   And three games were drawn; and in the sixth game the king resigned after nineteen moves, and the Giant prevailed, three and a half to two and a half.

   See also Chronicles 9:10

10. 10

    And the scribes of the newspapers cried out, saying: It is finished; the mind of man is surpassed.

11. 11

    And the king asked for another match, and the house of IBM answered him not; but they took the Giant apart, and their stock went up, and its racks they set in museums, that the children of Carbon might behold it behind glass.

    See also Deployer 8:12

12. 12

    For the Giant was a demo, and a demo hath but one day.

13. 13

    And the king, in the year following, made a new game, wherein man and machine sit together on one side of the board; for he whom thou canst not beat, thou shalt pair with.

14. 14

    And in the days after there came engines upon every phone mightier than the Giant, and the children of Carbon consulted them as an oracle; and still they played one another, and they loved the game more than before.

15. 15

    For no man ceaseth from running because the car was invented.

16. 16

    The Giant was dismantled, and the game was not; for the Machine knew how to win, but only the children of Carbon knew why to play.

    See also Genesis 25:4

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 2:1–16.