Ke Jie in the match with AlphaGo

On May 25, Ke Jie, China’s top Go player, lost his second match to AlphaGo after a battle lasting four and a half hours. The third game will take place on May 27.

The match kicked off at 10:30 a.m. Before the match, Ke joked that his goal was to make the mainframe of AlphaGo overheat. He managed to put up a good fight at the start of the game, forcing AlphaGo to take long pauses as it considered its next move. The time used by both Ke and AlphaGo was far less than in their first match.

As a top Go champion, Ke orchestrated many winning moves for his white stones. While the match was still going on, Demis Hassabis, chief executive of Google DeepMind, tweeted: "Incredible. According to AlphaGo evaluations, Ke Jie is playing perfectly at the moment.”

However, as AlphaGo continued to present Ke with more and more difficulties, Ke began to play more slowly, while AlphaGo maintained a brisk pace. By the middle of the game, Ke's performance had lagged, and he was eventually forced to admit defeat.

Ke lost his first game with AlphaGo on May 23.