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From: trt@rti.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.chess
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous
Message-ID: <1126@rti.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Jul-83 01:09:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti.1126
Posted: Sun Jul 17 01:09:16 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Jul-83 20:10:53 EDT
References: utcsrgv.1745
Lines: 46

Re: computer Othello (TM Gabriel), computer backgammon.
Since noone else has yet replied, I will make an attempt.

OTHELLO
The CMU Othello (generic near-equivalent is 'reversi') program
is probably better than any human.
I do not believe it has an official title, though.

In 1979, the first man-machine Othello tournament was held,
and the humans (world champ and runner up) finished 1, 2.
*But they each lost one of their 6 games against a machine.*
Kathy and Dan Sprachlen (Sargon, Boris, Chess Challenger, etc.)
had the best computer program, and the CMU program did well too.
(I forget the CMU authors' names -- check the 1982 SIGARTs.)

A year or so later a revised CMU program went 8-0 (!!) in
an all-computer event.
The world champion, Jonathan (?) Cerf, was in attendance
and said the CMU program was probably better than he was,
and declined to play a game.

So, something of an AI milestone was reached with Othello --
superiority over mankind in a fairly complex board game --
but the whole thing was pretty much a fizzle.
(Computers were total winners in Kalah years ago,
but Othello was a much bigger challenge.)

BACKGAMMON
In 1979, the CMU backgammon program developed by Hans Berliner et. al.
defeated the new world backgammon champ 5-1 (in 4 games).
The program was not and is not the world champ,
it just beat the champ in the only such match ever played.
Four games is far too few to judge the relative strengths
of two good players, and some (even Berliner)
have said that the program made noticeably worse moves
but was lucky (e.g. plenty of double sixes).

The CMU program is certainly good though, and the win
is an interesting historical footnote.
Unfortunately, backgammon has such a large component of luck
that even a 'perfect' computer backgammon program
might have trouble achieving the recognition that it deserved.

I have Berliner's 1979 writeup of the match,
including the game score.  Let me know via mail if you want a copy.
	Tom Truscott (duke!trt,   trt.duke@udel)