Computer chess built in by the evaluation function and pruning/extension rules began to match the best players in the world. It turned out to produce excellent results, at least in the field of chess, to let computers do what they do best (calculate) rather than coax them into imitating human thought processes and knowledge. In 1997 Deep Blue defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov, marking the first time a computer has defeated a reigning world chess champion in standard time control. Computer chess programs consider chess moves as a game tree. In theory, they examine all moves, then all counter-moves to those moves,
The Deep Blue Good-by time, we see the American culture change, from the Kennedy years in "The Deep Blue Good-bye" through the upheaval of hippie counterculture and the sexual revolution of the late 60s and 70s until the last book in the series at the end of the Reagan years in the mid-80s. As a chronicler of the cultural zeitgeist, MacDonald has been compared favorably with Charles Dickens. Reading the McGee novels in sequence therefore gives the reader a fascinating experience of seeing McGee change through the decades as American culture also changes. When MacDonald created the character, he was to be called Dallas