Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!newman From: newman@utcsrgv.UUCP (Ken Newman) Newsgroups: net.chess Subject: Re: Miscellaneous Message-ID: <1776@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Sat, 16-Jul-83 23:51:14 EDT Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1776 Posted: Sat Jul 16 23:51:14 1983 Date-Received: Sun, 17-Jul-83 02:07:44 EDT References: <318@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <1745@utcsrgv.UUCP> Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 25 I submitted an article recently in which I commented about the world champion in backgammon being a computer program a while ago, and got mail from someone asking my source for that statement. Well, my return mail got eaten ("host not found"), and then I accidentally deleted the path of the person who sent me mail. So I don't know who you are, and I'm posting my reply here instead. One of those days... My information regarding computer backgammon was quite correct. In a fascinating article that was the cover article of the June 1980 Scientific American, by Hans Berliner, a program is described that beat the world champion (then) Luigi Villa of Italy, by the score of 7-1 in a $5,000 winner-take-all match in Monte Carlo. It was the first time a computer program had beaten a world champion at any board or card game. The program is called BKG 9.8, and I recall seeing an ad in Byte for a CP/M version of the program(!). Actually I'm not sure if this was part of an official world championship tournament; I guess there is a difference between beating the world champ in a match and becoming the official world champion. Pretty impressive at least though. Ken Newman