MANAMA, Oct 14: Deep Fritz, the German-developed chess computer, healed its wounded pride Sunday, outwitting world champion Vladimir Kramnik in 35 moves to keep the $1 million eight-match series alive.

The supercomputer, programmed to evaluate 3.5 millions in a second, won its first game of the “Brains in Bahrain” challenge to narrow the 27-year-old Russian’s lead to 3-2.

Kramnik had won games two and three of the series, while the first and fourth games ended in draws.

With 15 minutes on his clock to make six more moves, Kramnik, playing with black pieces, tried to avoid a long, tedious and possibly lost endgame and made the worst blunder of his career to lose a piece and resigned almost immediately.

The contest — postponed last year following the September 11 attacks — is a sequel to Gary Kasparov’s 1997 defeat by the supercomputer Deep Blue in New York.—Reuters