"Watson," a supercomputer named after the founder of the US technology giant Thomas Watson, and human contestant Brad Rutter each had $5,000 after the first round of play.

The other human player, Ken Jennings, was trailing the pair with $2,000.

Watson, which is not connected to the Internet, was frequently quicker off the mark than Rutter and Jennings in pressing a buzzer to answer questions and breezed through a series of trivia about the Beatles.

Jeopardy!, which first aired on US television in 1964, tests a player's knowledge in a range of categories, from geography to politics to history to sports and entertainment.

A dollar amount is attached to each question and the player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Players have money deducted for wrong answers.

In a twist on traditional game play, contestants are provided with answers and need to supply the questions.

"What is Maxwell's silver hammer" replied Watson to the clue "Bang, bang, his silver hammer came down upon her head," a reference to the Beatles song.

Watson at one point built up a commanding lead with $4,000 to $200 each for Rutter and Jennings.

But the machine then began to slip up, oddly repeating a wrong answer to a question Jennings had already answered incorrectly.

Jennings, answering a question about when the Oreo cookie was introduced, said in the 1920s. Given its chance, Watson also said in the 1920s.

On another question, about a one-legged US Olympic champion, the clue was "It was the anatomical oddity of US gymnast George Eyser who won a gold medal on the parallel bars in 1904."

Watson replied "What is a leg" instead of "missing a leg."

Watson, which has been under development at IBM Research labs since 2006, plays the game by crunching through multiple algorithms at dizzying speed and attaching a percentage score to what it believes is the correct response.

The machine is the latest developed by IBM to challenge mankind -- in 1997, an IBM computer named "Deep Blue" defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match.

"You are about to witness what may prove to be an historic competition -- an exhibition match pitting an IBM computer system against the two most celebrated and successful players in Jeopardy! history," host Alex Trebek said in kicking off the show.

Jennings holds the Jeopardy! record of 74 straight wins while Rutter won a record $3.25 million on the show.

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