Author: martin fierz
Date: 12:47:55 08/12/02
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[snip] >>hmm, too simple for who? and who considers it "too simple"? > >I never tried to play checkers seriously but at least >my impression is that the game (if you use 8x8 board) >is clearly simpler than chess. > >I can explain the reasons for that impression. > >1)in chess there are 64 different squares when in checkers >only 32 squares are relevant. > >2)The number of different pieces in chess is bigger than >the number of different pieces in checkers. > >3)The number of legal moves for the side to move is >usually smaller in checkers. > >4)The number of possible positions in checkers is clearly >smaller than the number of possible positions in chess. you are right on all accounts there, but what does this prove? nothing. for humans, checkers is just as complex a game as chess or go or connect 4 or anything they cannot play perfectly. no human can play even close to the level of the 3 programs that competed in las vegas. of course, human checker players are not on the same level of professionalism as in chess, and the same goes for the programs. if you want to consider computational complexity, then you have to talk of the size of the search space and not about the number of pieces. i am a strong chess player, and when i wrote a checkers program, i did it because the rules of the game are much simpler to implement than for chess. after playing round with the program, i noticed that in some ways, checkers can be much deeper than chess: i'm sure you know about those tough endgames in chess like 2 bishops vs 1 knight which can win but only after 200-something moves. you don't have to worry about this, because it "never" turns up. in checkers however, this sort of thing turns up very often. there is a simple position called "first position" where there are 2 kings vs king and man, which takes something like 60 moves to win. elegance can also be found in simplicity (as any lover of endgame studys can tell you), and not only in queen sacrifices. >It seems that good memory is more important in checkers when >thinking is more imprtant in chess. not at all. book knowledge is a big part of both chess and checkers. there is definitely more book knowledge in chess than checkers. only, as tarrasch (?) put it: the gods have put the midgame before the endgame. in checkers, we have relatively much more powerful EGTBs than in chess, so if you do not make a mistake in the opening, your chances of drawing are much larger. checkers is just much more drawish than chess - that's all. i don't feel like arguing too much over this topic - if you want to know more, read schaeffer's book "one jump ahead", which is the story behind chinook and schaeffer's quest to defeat tinsley. in there, he addresses all the stuff about "checkers is a child's game" etc. there should be enough material in there to make it clear that it's definitely much more than that... >What was the time control of the match? >Can slower time control help humans to get better results? we played at 20 minutes/game + 1min increment. the time control of the man-machine match is unknown to me - but from watching humans play my program in vegas, i know that they lose for the same reasons as humans playing chess - blunders. so definitely more time will help the human. aloha martin
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