English draughts

English draughts, also called American checkers or "straight checkers", commonly called checkers in the U.S., but commonly called draughts in some other countries, is a form of the draughts board game played on an 8×8 board with 12 pieces on each side that may only move and capture forward.

Computer players

The first computer English draughts program was written by C. S. Strachey M.A., National Research Development Corporation, London, England, in the early 1950s. See the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery Meeting, Toronto, 1952.

Related Topics:
Computer - 1950s - Toronto - 1952

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The second computer program was written in 1956 by Arthur Samuel, a researcher from IBM. Other than it being one of the most complicated game playing programs written at the time, it is also well known for being one of the first adaptive programs. It learned by playing games against modified versions of itself, with the victorious versions surviving. Samuel's program was far from mastering the game, although one win against a blind checkers master gave the general public the impression that it was very good. Samuel didn't mention his opponent was blind!

Related Topics:
1956 - Arthur Samuel - IBM

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In the 1990s, the strongest program was Chinook written by a team led by Jonathan Schaeffer. Marion Tinsley, world champion from 1955-1962 and 1975-1991, won a match against the machine in 1992. In 1994, he had to resign in the middle of an even match because of health reasons; he died shortly thereafter. Chinook defended its man-machine title against Don Lafferty, and won the US national tournament in 1996 by a large margin. Chinook was retired after that tournament. The man-machine title was never contested again.

Related Topics:
1990s - Jonathan Schaeffer - Marion Tinsley - 1955 - 1962 - 1975 - 1991 - 1992 - 1994 - Don Lafferty - 1996

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The best PC programs of today are stronger than the best humans, and also stronger than Chinook was at the time when it won the man-machine title. In addition, today's PCs are much faster than Chinook's hardware.

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