Rematch true story: Star explains Garry Kasparov's historic chess battle

The six-part series takes us inside the team at tech giant IBM as well as Kasparov's personal life in the build-up to the 1997 event, which was held in New York City and broadcast around the world.

RadioTimes.com spoke to Cooke about all things Rematch and portraying the chess legend – read on for what he had to say, plus Kasparov's own words on the infamous Deep Blue matches.

Rematch true story: Christian Cooke on Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue

Rematch dramatises the story of world champion chess player Garry Kasparov as he plays a second set of games against a super computer known as Deep Blue.

The rematch was arranged by tech giant IBM in order to showcase the power and ability of their technology on the global stage, with major outlets providing prominent coverage to the 1997 second meeting between Kasparov and Deep Blue's architects.

"IBM were leaning on a whole team of people, including ex-chess players and current grandmasters, as the show portrays, to program their computer," said Rematch star Christian Cooke, in an interview with RadioTimes.com.

"It was such a smart play by IBM, because win or lose, really, it was [beneficial to them]. I mean, nowadays you see this sort of thing all the time, in terms of interesting strategies to market a company."

As depicted in the first episode of Rematch, Kasparov's initial introduction to Deep Blue saw him triumph against the cutting-edge machine, although he did lose two of the six games they played.

This was significant, marking the first time that a computer had managed to beat a world champion chess player in a classical game held under tournament regulations – and IBM clearly saw potential to go all the way.

Over the course of a year, they invested an enormous amount of time, money and resource into developing the capabilities of Deep Blue, in preparation for a costly rematch against Kasparov. This time, the computer claimed the match.

In the immediate aftermath, Kasparov publicly doubted the result as he did not believe Deep Blue was sophisticated enough to beat him, alleging instead that human chess players had taken control of the machine during the fateful games.

IBM denied any such interventions at the time and, almost decades later, Kasparov's own view of events had notably softened, telling podcaster Sam Harris in 2016 that he had gained a greater "respect" for the company's Deep Blue programmers.

"Analysing the games with modern computers [and] also soul-searching... I changed my conclusions," he explained. "I am not writing any love letters to IBM, but my respect for the Deep Blue team went up."

That said, he went on to clarify that the Deep Blue model which triumphed over him has aged poorly, claiming that "you can buy a chess engine for your laptop [today] that will beat Deep Blue quite easily".

Kasparov added: "It's a painful story, since I will be entering history as the chess champion who represented humanity in an intellectual pursuit and was beaten by the machine."

The former world champion was born in the Soviet Union in 1963, but became a sceptic of communism from a young age after taking trips to the western world to play the game that would make him famous.

As depicted in the show, Kasparov's mother, Klara, accompanied him on his international trips and helped to shape his illustrious career, as the chess genius himself recalled following her death in 2020, aged 83.

He wrote in a heartfelt tribute shared to his website: "She was a fixture on the professional chess circuit, watching my games and watching out for me in every regard.

"As fearsome a reputation as I may have had as 'the Beast of Baku', at the chessboard, my mother's fierceness in defending my interests even as an accomplished world champion was even more formidable."

After taking an active role in Russian politics for several years – in opposition to the policies of the country's current authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin – he ultimately fled the country in 2013 amid fears of persecution.

Neither Rematch's co-creator André Gulluni nor its star Cooke consulted directly with Kasparov during the production of the show, with the former suggesting it could affect the objectivity of the series to do so (via Les Echoes).

For his role, Cooke told RadioTimes.com: "I just wanted to capture the essence of him, which I think is his focus, his single-mindedness, his passion. If I did any sort of imitation, it was how he is at the board. People that played against him would say that he was very aggressive."

One example of Kasparov's psychological warfare includes his placing of a watch at the side of the board that he would put back on his wrist at a specific moment, aiming to convey to his opponent when they were approaching checkmate.

As Cooke describes, it would be quite the "head f**k" for anyone attempting to take him on.

Combined with these daunting gestures, Kasparov would also keep himself at the peak of physical fitness while competing at the top of the chess world, considering this as only to the benefit of his gameplay.

"I don't know if he was one of the first or the first to start training like an athlete [for a non-athletic game]," said Cooke. "He used to run; he used to do lots of press ups; he was very fit and strong.

"Now it's kind of accepted, right? Like, healthy body, healthy mind. But back then, I think that not a lot of chess players did take his approach, and he very much did treat it like a physical exertion as well."

The story of Kasparov's two epic chess matches against Deep Blue seems to have renewed significance in the age of AI advancement that we currently live, and Cooke says that drawing parallels was "always the conscious intention of the writers".

While there are plenty of pessimistic predictions out there, one aspect of the story does offer hope: the defeat of Kasparov by Deep Blue didn't detract all interest in human-led chess competitions.

It provides yet more evidence that people remain invested in the work and accomplishments of fellow living beings, even when technology proves itself capable of similar feats.

On this optimistic reading, Cooke adds: "Think about how many people have learned chess or practiced chess on on their phones; the fact that they can play computers has probably been beneficial and made chess as a sport more accessible.

"You would hope that that would be the same in other areas of AI – that maybe it would be used to enhance an interest or a curiosity that someone is having."

Rematch is available to stream on Disney+.

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