THE world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik agreed a draw with the supercomputer Deep Fritz after 21 moves in the final game of their match in Bahrain.

The result ensured the eight-game series was tied and saw the Russian grandmaster, 27, restore parity between neurones and microchips. Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, lost the last match of this kind to Deep Blue when they played in 1997.

Kramnik also picked up £500,000 for his efforts.

Kramnik, known as the Ice Man because of his unflappability, played defensively, and, according to Frederic Friedel, one of Deep Fritz’s programmers, was content to play for a draw.

Christopher Lutz, one of Kramnik’s grandmaster aides, denied that the champion had ever been nervous but Friedel begged to differ, arguing that the pressure on Kramnik had been intense.

The match has seesawed back and forth with Kramnik taking a two-point lead before being pegged back by the machine, which can look 18 moves ahead and calculate 3m moves a second.

Kramnik went to extraordinary lengths to adjust to the demands of competing against a computer in an attempt to avoid the fate that befell Kasparov.

He practised against the machine for two weeks before the contest began and came to the match armed with a personal trainer-cum-masseur, a bodyguard and two elite grandmaster advisers.

The finale, which began at 1pm yesterday, was followed online by 70,000 people. It was also broadcast in Britain and overseas by Einstein TV, a satellite channel. Now the chess program that Deep Fritz used is to go on sale.

Daniel King, a British grandmaster, remained unimpressed by Deep Fritz even though it had drawn with Kramnik, arguing that the Russian, who could have won, had become overawed by the computer.

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