IBM TO EXTEND DEEP BLUE CHESS TOURNAMENT TO PUBLIC: Will Continue Offering $700,000 to winners and $400,000 to losersRunamok, NY /DenounceNewswire/ -- May 14, 1997 -- Following the success of its Deep Blue victory over chess champ Gary Kasparov, IBM announced today it is expanding its hugely popular chess contest to anyone who wants to play. The stakes are the same: $700,000 to the winner, and $400,000 to the loser. Within hours of today's announcement, IBM claimed it had already signed up over 617,000 chess players, each of whom will take turns playing against Deep Blue, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, over the next 18 months. IBM said it would keep signing up contestants for another week. If it keeps up the current rate of signups, IBM will have over 6 million people registered to play against Deep Blue. Wall Street reacted positively to the news, sending IBM's stock price to a new high of $914 per share. Shareholders were thrilled at the profit potential for the chess game. Even if IBM loses all 6 million games, it still stands to earn over $24 trillion. "The most brilliant marketing move of the century," says Indu Strypundit, an industry pundit. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, expressed concern that should IBM win even a small percentage of the games, there might not be enough money to go around. "We are prepared to resort to gold bullion from Fort Knox if need be," he said, in a prepared statement.
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