Author: Terry McCracken
Date: 22:33:49 05/03/02
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On May 04, 2002 at 00:58:59, Russell Reagan wrote: >I'm curious if anyone knows anything about the computer checkers scene. I know >about computer chess, how chess programs work, how good chess programs are >compared to the best human chess players, etc. and would like to find out about >checkers programs. I know that (for example) go programs aren't anywhere close >to master strength. So are checkers programs as good as the best master checkers >players? I would guess that checkers would probably use some of the same basic >methods as a chess program, such as search and evaluation, but are there any >special methods that a checkers program would use that chess programs don't? Or >any methods a chess program uses that a checkers program wouldn't use >successfully? > >I've only recently started playing checkers to get a feel for the game, but it >seems like there are a great number of positions where zugzwang occurs and so >null move probably wouldn't work in checkers, or maybe it would need >modifications. I'm mainly interested in checkers programs and that whole >"scene", but also if anyone has any info to offer on other game playing programs >I'd like to hear that as well. I'm more a fan of game playing programs and AI >methods in general than only chess. > >One last thing I thought about was endgame tablebases. Are these available for >checkers or other games? It seems like it might be both faster and smaller to >generate the tablebases for checkers, but I'm not totally sure on that. There >are fewer pieces on the board and fewer squares of the board that are in use, so >it seems like endgame tablebases might play a more significant role if they were >created for checkers. > >Thanks for your info. > >Russell I really can't say how checker programmes in general, or even the best commercial programmes play, relative to chess programmes. However, I _do_ know Chinook is unbeatable, it plays perfect checkers since a bug was removed after plaing Tinsley in 1994. And yes Chinook has endgame tablebases:o) Jonathan Schaeffer of the University of Alberta, a Canadian chess master, and "Master" programmer created and perfected Chinook. He has been involved in computer chess since the early 80's. The online version of Chinook is disabled to a large degree and does't show Chinooks' true strength. http://games.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/ http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~jonathan/Papers/ai.html Also there is at least one person here who programmes checkers and he incorporates tablebases as well, Martin Fierz. I'm sure he could fill you in on checker programmes. Oh and so can Jonathan Schaeffer as well!:o) Terry
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