After
the game Vladimir Kramnik said that he was never worried about losing the
typical Berlin endgame that arose in his first game against Deep Fritz. The
World Champion is the master of this line and Fritz was unable to take advantage
of the white pieces. Kramnik surprised Kasparov in their 2000 world championship match with the Berlin and Kasparov was never able to break through. It is a rock-solid system that gives white more space and activity but is very hard to break through. Black has little more than passive defense available unless white makes a serious mistake. In front of an online audience of hundreds of thousands around the world, the champ made drawing against the world's strongest computer chessplayer look almost easy. Almost.
The final position was completely drawn, with the white king unable to make any progress even with an extra pawn. Of course Kramnik saw this coming a mile away, but Fritz was unable to see and avoid the blockade. It did not realize that its pawn advantage was completely useless. When Fritz played 25.h4 a quick smile appeared on Kramnik's face as it guaranteed a short and easy draw.
In the press conference Kramnik said that this was the best move on the board, while everyone had been condemning it as a mistake. But the champion was only having a little joke as he went on to say, "it's the best move because it was drawn anyway and this way we could all go home early!"
The Fritz team looked quite depressed for just having drawn the World Chess Champion. A clear flaw in their brainchild had been brutally exposed and there was no way to patch it up, at least not during the match. But it was not all frowns. "We wanted Kramnik to have to defend, and we accomplished that," said Matthias Wullenweber of ChessBase, "we just wish he had to work a little harder and longer."
Here are the moves of the game: