NEW YORK, May 7: World chess champion Garry Kasparov has called supercomputer Deep Blue an ``alien opponent'' but yesterday he said it was playing like a god.

The best player in the history of the ancient game has suffered the double embarrassment of needlessly resigning to the IBM system on Sunday and then being held to a draw in yesterday's third game of their six-game re-match despite the advantage of the white pieces.

``The scientists are saying that Deep Blue is only calculating, but it has showed signs of intelligence,'' said Kasparov, who had no advance information on his opponent and has labelled it alien. The $1.1 million match is tied at 1.5 points each and Kasparov will have to play with the black pieces in two out of the three remaining games.

The revelation that the Russian gave up on Sunday in what was in fact a drawn position, dominated and overshadowed the third game of the contest, a closely fought draw out of an English opening that ended with Deep Blue's programmers accepting Kasparov's draw offer after almost 4-1/2 hours at the board.

``It reminds me of the famous goal that Maradona scored against England in '86. He said it was `the Hand of God','' stated Kasparov, referring to a goal one of the world's greatest soccer players, Diego Maradona of Argentina, scored in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

Maradona illegally used his hand to punch the ball into the net but the infraction was not spotted by the referee and the goal counted.

``Suddenly you know it played like a god for one particular moment,'' Kasparov added.

The Russian's remarkable and rare oversight was a reminder to human players that their emotions can be a handicap in clashes with machines.

Several leading GMs admitted that they too had initially missed the continuation that would have saved the day for Kasparov. It was left to an untitled player in an internet chat room to claim the credit for unlocking the problem.

Deep Blue's programmers also said it had not calculated the moves correctly during the game, something Kasparov described as ``very human from my point of view.''

Grandmasters intensely debated how the strongest player in chess history overlooked a sequence of moves that would have forced a draw Sunday and maintained his lead in the match.

Instead, the 34-year-old Russian resigned the position after Deep Blue's 45th move and the match was tied at one win each. Kasparov defeated the machine Saturday in the first game.

Chess experts, almost without exception described Sunday's game as the best performance ever by a computer, likening it to the style of top human players.

Kasparov was forced by Deep Blue to defend with his black pieces for almost four hours and looked tired and demoralised.

Subsequent analysis showed that Kasparov could have played a series of moves to force what is known in chess as ``perpetual check'' -- one player repeatedly attacking his opponent's King, ensuring none of his other pieces can make further moves and thus a draw is the only outcome.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.