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From: trt@rti-sel.UUCP (Tom Truscott)
Newsgroups: net.chess
Subject: Re: Why can't a machine be World's Checkers Champ?
Message-ID: <338@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 12:05:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.338
Posted: Fri Aug  9 12:05:34 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 08:20:23 EDT
References: <474@oakhill.UUCP> <10913@rochester.UUCP>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 31

> I'm almost sure that a few years ago I read that man could no longer beat
> a checker program.  And the only way even the world champ could win a game
> was if the computer always moved second. ...

I too have read such reports.  They are sincere but wrong.
In particular Marion Tinsley (math prof., world checkers champion)
has expressed non-trivial contempt for computer checkers programs.
Here is a snip from a paper I wrote on computer checkers:

    ``I should say that at present, there are several thousand
    just average Class B players who could beat either
    [the Duke or Stanford] computer without difficulty.''
    -- W.B. Grandjean, \fIACF bulletin\fP, August 1977
    .QP
    ``Although computers had long since been unbeatable
    at such basic games as checkers, ...''
    -- Clark Whelton, \fIHorizon\fP, February 1978
    .PP
    In computer checkers,
    as in many areas of artificial intelligence,
    misconceptions abound as to the present capabilities of machines. ...


> ... I'm talking main frame well done checker
> programs here, not a radio shack toy.

The Duke checkers program was written entirely in S/360 assembly language
and run on an IBM 370/165, so I guess that qualifies.
But I am sure someone could write a TRS-80 program that could beat it.
Look at Kathe and Dan Spracklin's computer chess successes on a micro.
	Tom Truscott