When chess caught up

Simon expected a computer chess champion within ten years. It took nearly forty.

In 1997, defeated the reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov, in a six-game match.

Deep Blue could examine up to 200 million chess positions each second. It could not explore every possible continuation, so it searched selected paths and used an to judge what it found.

Deep Blue showed how far specialized search could go inside a world with clear rules, visible positions, and one goal. It did not show that the same method could handle language, perception, or everyday reasoning.