The world’s best human chess player, Vladimir Kramnik, has taken the lead over Deep Fritz, the world’s best computer player, in a million-dollar battle between man and machine.

Kramnik was given a copy of Deep Fritz three months before the start of the contest, allowing him to prepare in a similar way as he would for a match with a grandmaster — by analyzing his previous games.

Unlike IBM’s Deep Blue, which defeated the then world champion, Gary Kasparov, in 1997, Deep Fritz was not reprogrammed following each game and it focuses on better algorithms rather than brute computing force.