Sharansky to take on Deep Blue

JERUSALEM, May 21 (JTA) — Natan Sharansky is going to try his luck next month against Deep Blue, the IBM computer that defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov in a six-game match earlier this month. After Sharansky, Israel’s trade and industry minister, expressed interest in taking on the supercomputer, IBM invited him to play during an official business trip to the United States slated for next month. Though no grandmaster, Sharansky perfected his chess game during the nine years he spent in a Soviet jail as a political dissident before coming to Israel in 1986. Last year, Sharansky won a game against Kasparov, who was playing 25 games simultaneously at the time. For his part, Kasparov, who is currently in Israel to inaugurate the opening of a new chess center, said he wanted to take the computer on again.