Jonathan Speelman of Britain won the seventh game of his semifinal world championship candidates match with Jan Timman of the Netherlands to pull even at 3 1/2-3 1/2.
Timman won their second game and the others were all drawn.In the other semifinal match, Artur Yusupov of the Soviet Union won the fifth and drew the sixth game with his countryman Anatoly Karpov, to level their contest at 3-3.
The matches are being played in Sadler's Wells Ballet Theater in London. Should they reach a deadlock after the regulation eight games, there will be a two-game tie breaker.
Should that not produce a winner, a series of sudden-death games, at ever-increasing speeds would begin.
The contest is to provide the next challenger for world champion Gary Kasparov of the Soviet Union. It will be a 24-game contest beginning in October 1990.
The winners of the semifinals will face off in the Candidates final scheduled for March 1990.
-(Late news) - Karpov, playing his finest game in the World Championship semis, defeated compatriot Artur Yusupov in their eighth and final game to come one step away from a crack at world champion Kasparov.
Karpov will now face the winner of the match between Britain's Jon Speelman and Jan Timman of the Netherlands in the Candidates.
Speelman and Timman are even with 3 1/2-3 1/2 with one game to play.
-"MACHINE VS. MIND" - Kasparov has vanquished all challengers since capturing the title in 1985. But none of these opponents could calculate 720,000 possible chess-piece arrangements in one second.
Deep Thought can!
Deep Thought, a chess-playing computer created by researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, will challenge Kasparov Sunday, Oct. 22, at the New York Academy of Art.
At least one chess expert thinks the computer could out-duel the champion.
"Deep Thought is clearly the first chess computer with the potential to draw blood and defeat the world champion," says chess commentator Shelby Lyman, who helped arrange the matchup.
Robert Byrne, chess editor of the New York Times, disagrees. "I would say it is not yet ready to mount a serious challenge to Mr. Kasparov."
But that could just be sour grapes - Deep Thought defeated Byrne when the two squared off in August.
Byrne became the second grandmaster defeated by Deep Thought. The first was Bent Larsen of Denver, the world's 96th ranked player with an International Chess Federation (FIDE) rating of 2,580 based on his tournament performances.
In comparison, the computer's rating from the United States Chess Federation (USCF) is 2,250. FIDE now rates Kasparov at 2,795.
Deep Thought captured the 1989 World Computer Chess Championship in Edmonton, Canada. The matchup with Kasparov is part of an annual chess competition sponsored by ASG Computers Inc.
-DUTCH TREAT - Kasparov won the 13th annual Interpolis Tournament with a record score of 12 points in 14 matches.
Victor Korchnoi, a Soviet exile who lives in Switzerland, finished second.
First prize in the $50,000 event was $12,000. Kasparov's performance in the southern Dutch city of Tilburg also gave him enough points to raise him to 2795 surpassing the record earned by former world champion Bobby Fischer in 1972 with 2,785.
The win at Tilburg, where the maximum score was 14, extends an undefeated string for the 26-year-old Soviet grandmaster that began in 1981. Korchnoi, 58, compiled 8 1/2 points and won $8,000 for his second place finish.
-CONGRATULATIONS TO THE SOLVERS! - Jim Turner, Ken Frost, Brian Griffith, Al Nicholas, Aaron Kennard, Mark Stranger, Harold Rosenberg, Edwin O. Smith, Robert Tanner, Dean Marsh, Monroe M. Iverson, Brian Harrow, Grant Hodson, William D. Rice, Ann Neil, Kay Lundstrom, Michael Marsh, Dean Thompson, Hal Knight, Mel Puller, Covert Copier, Raeburn Kennard, Paul R. Lindeman, Carleen Pathakis, Ted Pathakis, Lloyd Eldredge, Mike Nelson, Erick DeMillard, William DeVroom and Ardean Watts.