In an epic duel between man and machine, chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik defeated the computer program Deep Fritz.

Held at the prestigious Art and Exhibition Hall in Bonn, Germany, Kramnik pocketed the one-million Euro prize after making two moves the computer was unable to foresee: dumping water on the machine, and in the following match, hitting it with a hammer.

The match was billed as the last between humans and machines, as world champions have lost or drawn the previous three meetings to computers. If Kramnik were to lose badly, the chess community would have to admit that electronic underlings had overtaken their human masters in yet another area of intellectual activity.

“Perhaps I will be the last top player to face this challenge,” Kramnik hinted before the tournament, “but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

After drawing the first match in a five-hour ordeal, the computer took the second when Kramnik made one of the biggest blunders in world competition. With another draw four minutes away, the tiring human champion allowed Deep Fritz to place its queen into a one-move checkmate just before the five-hour mark.

“It was the largest oversight ever to occur on the international stage,” said world-renowned chess analyst Yasser Mozziltov. “It was an absolute disaster. But the worst botch job of the tournament was yet to come.”

While Deep Fritz is able to compute 9.462 million board positions per second, he was unable to foresee Kramnik pouring a pitcher of water upon it, giving the human competitor a decisive edge.

“It was an ingenious manoeuvre,” Mozziltov said. “As the first play of the match, his timing was impeccable. Kramnik must have noticed the difficulty the machine would have if soaked with litres of water.”

Kramnik was visibly happy by the conclusion of third game, where he defeated Deep Fritz without losing a single piece.

“I don’t know what his deal was. With all the sparks, I guess he was ‘on the fritz’,” Kramnik chuckled. “Let’s hope he gets it together by the next meeting.”

While Deep Fritz’s gaffe was corrected by the fourth match, the computer yet again failed to predict what the human champion would pull out of his sleeve. It turned out to be a hammer.

It’s conventional opening left Deep Fritz with no defence against the onslaught Kramnik landed on his electronic opponent, drawing a newly bought claw hammer and schooling the computer with a dozen well-placed blows.

“Again, Kramnik’s brilliance at work,” Mozziltov praised. “If Deep Fritz was preoccupied with being bashed to pieces, it would be unable to compute its complex algorithms. A huge oversight by the machine that was seized by its human adversary.”

When asked for comment, Deep Fritz was heard to beep: “Error. Error. Error.”