Yes.

There are no curves in chess, therefore the machine will always win. 

Agreed?

That's not so much a fact as what I call a true opinion. But it is totally true. The situation isn't so bleak, however; I still have hope that some prodigy will come along to destroy the machines, a John Connor or chess for those with inclinations for completely self-inconsistent-and-unrealistic-but-nevertheless-rather-entertaining-science-fiction-film-franchises. Quite simply, I'm very confident that the computers can be beaten, as will probably be proven by the computers of five years in the future, at the very least. Furthermore, computers still lack the ability to think, which, in chess, seems to be less important than incredible calculation powers, but nevertheless important, and so there is some (incredibly miniscule) hope. And I actually think there's a halfway decent hope that in a million games, Rybka would lose one of them to world-class GMs. Halfway decent being somewhere around 25%. However, it seems that, at least for now, Humanity's best hope is to play human-enhanced (i.e. playing on teams, with books, analysis boards, maybe oehter computers) against computer, and to experiment with different time controls, as this can definitely be a huge boon to the human players, there generally being a range where the computers are best.

About the original question (IBM cheating). It is extremely strange IBM never sold a chess program. I mean, you defeat the world champion and refuse to make money from this?? Just imagine how many would have bought a chess engine produced by IBM at that time. Even working on a general purpose computer, not on dedicated hardware like Deep Blue.

By the way: any chess program today knows absolutely nothing about chess. Things like "you need to break open the center with a pawn lever" or "you push your pawn to b4 to make a nice outpost for your knight on c5" are completely unknown to an engine. All they do is simply compute the best move, according to an evaluation function.

Computers haven't ruined chess because people don't play against them. That is like saying competitive running was ruined by the invention of the automobile. Computers have majorly progressed our understanding of the game, pros use them for home prep to test out the soundness of their ideas or to analyze their games for mistakes. Its wrong to anthropomorphize computers into "intelligent" beings. Calculators are better at math than us but nobody flouts at how smart they are.

I'm sorry, but human beings are way better at Mathematics than calculators are. Calculators have the advantage* in number-crunching, which is only one small part of Maths. Furthermore, competitive running may not have been ruined by automobiles, but it was ruined by steroids and other PEDs. You make an excellent point about computers having no understnading though.

*I would acutally argue that humans are better at crunching numbers than calculators, but it's a drawn-out, technical argument with almost no value in it, so I'll just skip it.

For those interested in the movie AND the games of the 1997 match, buy the DVD -- it has bonus material of the games, with each move called out in a very robotic fashion. 

Personally, I think the IBM team did some unethical things.  But let's be honest, the evidence of human intervention in Game 2 isn't strong enough, even with the repetition idea.  While I enjoyed the movie, even its conspiratorial angles, I have to agree with GM Joel Benjamin's assessment that it should be called A Study in Paranoia.  In his book American Grandmaster, he rightly points out that some of the scenes are ridiculously paranoid (e.g. the window-watching scene).

OK, I should have mentioned that GM Benjamin was part of the IBM team.  But even if there was human intervention during the games, there's no reason to think Benjamin was in on it.  IBM would have no reason to include him on that cheating aspect, if they indeed did cheat that way.

P.S.  If Deep Blue freezes up or shuts down, I call it a forfeit.  None of this repair-and-replay business.

Always remember that a computers ability to think, and a computers ability to do math, are two entirely different things. Did computers win the chess war, of course. Will a computer ever be able to truly create? Never. You can't make a synthetic soul. And for all the people that are concerned about computers 'killing' chess, you're off the mark too. I don't know about anyone elses skill level, but I am not a prodigy myself, nor do I play against geniuses, so our chess games are still played at the human level. Maybe I am a bit slow or something, but if you plopped the Cliff's Notes to the Big Book Of Solved Chess onto my lap, I wouldn't be able to retain even a sliver of it, let alone implement it. Just consider how few people have been able to assimilate the chess knowledge of the past few millennia. This new flow of database perfection really doesn't seem to matter much.

Chessroshi, I agree with your well articulated stance on this. 

One minor point I make is that what was killed in Kasparov's loss was not chess itself and the appeal to average people to play it, but the flashpoint the game held as a highly marketable commodity to the masses. In order to inspire the type of large scale economics needed for people to really be professionals such as what is seen in other entertainment/sports/gaming professions it needed to signify some unique human characterisctic, and it did. 

By clinging so vociferously to this line of demarcation, that a chess 'computer' could never beat a world champion, the game played russian roulette and lost in the competitive capitalist market place (which ain't going anywhere, despite what people are hearing ).

Presently in the western world the game is in the hands of large not-for-profit groups whose job it is to beg money from others instead of using a product or service to generate income for sustenance.

My opinion on chess becoming a marketable entertainment option, is that it will never happen. A good portion of society, at least in the United States, is really just in survival mode with the recession. The stimulus that people are seeking for entertainment, for relaxation, is certainly not going to be a strenuous mental activity. The masses here have a hard enough time adjusting from the main sports to other sports, or even just the same sports played by women. The role I see for chess is a leisure activity, something that we could impliment in schools to boost education. In the US, a general turnaround of values will have to come first to even take steps to make chess more important. The educational system itself is an undervalued entity, oft put on the backburner. So chess, being a piece of that system, suffers equally so. Once education is valued, public opinion of chess will also rise. Sadly I think this progression will be too slow to bear.

Well he drew a series against deep junior in 2003..

I rented the DVD, a somewhat amusing documentary, but very dry at the same time. It does give a good view into the historic match, but there are better games to analyze. Not highly recommended, but it's all right.

R&O are being paid by chess.com.

There you are 100% incorrect my longitudinally challenged forum associate.

I am not affiliated with the site in any way and would not carry their water even if offered to do so for reasonable compensatory considerations.

It´s a pity computers are not posting their opinion. Aren´t we are lucky in using computers to post ours ?

If the pay were good, I'd post for chess.com and I promise at least one cultural allusion per post. No allusions until then though....

My contract calls for .6 per post.

oooops.

Great post.

Pleiades is supposed to hit 1 petaflop this year, I believe?

I did not know about Roadrunner...very cool. 

I do not work in the field, I am just a geek fanboy and quasi-follower.

I spent a lot of time climbing in New Paltz area back in 94 and had many friends across the river working with IBM so still have some contacts whose brains I pick (when they let me...).  I am not mad at IMB for doing what they did to Kasparov, it was inevitable at some point soon anyway....I just don't fell they disclosed all, and why should they>?  In the end they are a business with their own interests...ones I have mostly been the benfactor of so....