Author: Jeroen Noomen
Date: 11:46:09 09/09/02
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On September 09, 2002 at 12:15:19, Uri Blass wrote: >I do not know much about checkers and I never looked at the games but >if the opponent cannot beat you when you play for a draw then it means that the >opponent is not better than you. You cannot have a thorough opinion about this, if you don't know the game. I'm not an checkers expert either, but I know that Lafferty knew the openings well and also the published play. His tactics against Chinook were simple: Avoid any unknown line, play the published lines and take zero risk. In that case it is almost impossible to win. Which absolutely doesn't mean that Chinook is not stronger than Lafferty. As a matter of fact: When Tinsley died, Chinook was by far the highest rated player in the world. And it WAS better than Lafferty that time. >Could Lafferty draw every game or almost every game against tinsley? If I am right, they drew almost all their tournament games. But that is because they were friends and Lafferty called Tinsley 'his mentor'. Sometimes they finished their 4 tournament games within 10 minutes, when the others didn't even finish the openingphase of their first game :-) >If he could not do it and could do better against chinook then it means that >chinook was weaker than tinsley. The first match Chinook lost by 4-2. But it was unlucky: Chinook led by 2-1 and achieved something NOBODY had ever managed to do: To beat Tinsley 2 times in one match. Then the horror struck, as Chinook lost a game by forfeit in a drawish position. The Chinook in the 2nd match was much stronger than the Chinook in the first match: Faster machine, more endgame databases and a better evaluation function. So it is very well possible that the Chinook of the 2nd match was a better player than Tinsley. Too bad history took such a course that this couldn't be proved :-). Just read Jonathan Schaeffer's book. I am sure you will love it! Jeroen
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