The Machine opened Pawn to King Four, Votbinnik replied Pawn to King Three.
"The French Defense, Binny's favorite," Dave muttered and they settled back for the Machine's customary four-minute wait.
Instead the Machine moved at once and punched its clock.
Sandra, studying Votbinnik through her glasses, decided that the Russian grandmaster looked just a trifle startled. Then he made his move.
Once again the Machine responded instantly.
There was a flurry of comment from the stands and a scurrying-about of officials to shush it. Meanwhile the Machine continued to make its moves at better than rapid-transit speed, although Votbinnik soon began to take rather more time on his.
The upshot was that the Machine made eleven moves before it started to take time to 'think' at all.
Sandra clamored so excitedly to Dave for an explanation that she had two officials waving at her angrily.
As soon as he dared, Dave whispered, "Great must have banked on Votbinnik playing the French—almost always does—and fed all the variations of the French into the Machine's 'memory' from MCO and maybe some other books. So long as Votbinnik stuck to a known variation of the French, why, the Machine could play from memory without analyzing at all. Then when a strange move came along—one that wasn't in its memory—only on the twelfth move yet!—the Machine went back to analyzing, only now it's taking longer and going deeper because it's got more time—six minutes a move, about. The only thing I wonder is why Great didn't have the Machine do it in the first three games. It seems so obvious."
Sandra ticketed that in her mind as a question for Doc. She slipped off to her room to write her "Don't Let a Robot Get Your Goat" article (drawing heavily on Doc's observations) and got back to the stands twenty minutes before the second time-control point. It was becoming a regular routine.