Checkers "Solved", Finally

According to Discover magazine, Jonathan Schaeffer has finally "solved" checkers with his Chinook program.

I read Jonathan's book One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers almost ten years ago when his brother Dan (my neighbor) gave me a copy. It's a great book. The recurring theme was that everyone kept asking him "Isn't Checkers solved, already?"

Well, it wasn't until now. Chinook finally knows every possible position in Checkers and how to win or draw from that position. Which doesn't really make the game "solved"; not until a winning strategy can be explained to a human player who can then implement it perfectly every time.

Oh yeah: who wins? From the starting position, black to play can only draw against a perfect opponent.

Yehuda

A Job Experience

I have low expectations for this weekend. Rachel and I are alone for dinner, however, so it shouldn't be too hard to get in two games of Puerto Rico tonight.

Since Chris told me he would be able to bring me some games, I shipped some to him:

WildLife
Children of Fire (the board game, which sounds like a less chaotic version of Ys)
San Juan (for one of our game groupies)
Lost Cities
Tichu
Saboteur

I have several other games waiting for me at various friends around America: Netrunner, Middle Earth CCG, and lord knows what else. I'm starting to lose track of what's where.

...

As I was writing this, the apartment's gardener stopped in and needed a check from the apt committee, currently run by my wife. She was going to be back in fifteen minutes, and he agreed to wait. I offered him coffee. And waited about thirty seconds.

One thing I know about Arabs in the Middle East is that most of them play Backgammon and/or Checkers. Now, I don't speak any Arabic, and he didn't speak much English or Hebrew. But I managed to convey to him the options by taking out the pieces and offering him a choice.

Apparently he doesn't play much but of course he knew how to play. We progressed through the game. I wasn't sure if he didn't know how to play well, or liked to occasionally see if he could get away with some things. His dice rolling practically consisted of putting the dice down on the table. He moved to the wrong spaces, sometimes. But he seemed to enjoy himself, anyway.

Near the end, when it was clear that I was winning, he tried to explain that there were two other games he preferred to play on the same board, something called "Muchbasa" and something else called "Thirty-one". Just as he was beginning to explain Muchbasa, Rachel returned.

...

As I was writing this, I received an email from a friend, passing on a job opportunity he found for ... wait for it ... a game blogger. The position is located in central Israel, and topics will include: skill games, sports, gaming, pc games, card games, board games, online games, network gaming, game rules and strategies, how-to manuals, instructional materials, etc.

Said friend also invited us over to play games sometime this week. Funny, because I have still never played Balderdash and was looking to play it with another couple or two next week and had preliminarily invited a different couple over to do just that. We don't play Balderdash on games night because it is not strategic, and we can't play it on shabbat because it requires writing.

God works in mysterious ways.

Yehuda

Template woes

Somehow I lost the last part of my template sometime recently. I have reconstructed some of it, but it is probably a mess of incorrect HTML. I may have to start over again. Well, I was due for a redesign sometime soon, anyway.

Yehuda

Here's an article about Checkers players at a national tournament, including some who appear to practice quite poor gaming etiquette. Trash talking?