From: darse@cs.UAlberta.CA (Darse Billings)
Subject: Re: Man vs Computer Checkers Championship
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:56:55 GMT

alopez-o@neumann.uwaterloo.ca (Alex Lopez-Ortiz) writes:
>Today's newspaper has a picture of Marion Tinsley palying a computer with 
>the caption [my comments are in brackets].

>   World checkers champ Marion Tinsley ponders his next move against
>   the Chinook Supercomputer in London, England, yesterday during the 
>   World Draughts [checkers] Championship. The computer is ranked 
>   second in the world [the checkers program was written by J. 
>   Schaeffer of the Univiersity of Alberta]. Tinsbury, of Tallahassee,
>   Florida, as of yesterday had won one game and drawn five in a 40-game
>   series against the computer.

>Does anybody has more information on the match?

We here at the U of Alberta are receiving daily updates of the match.  

I will speak to the sources and see if they will provide this
information to rec.games.chess (they are posting it locally already).
(Incidentally, if this doesn't seem to be the appropriate newsgroup,
then be sure to vote 'yes' to the creation of rec.games.strategic).

Failing all else, I will post updates every few days (plus any day which
has a decisive result).  Here is some background information and the
current situation: 

Dr. Marion Tinsley is a professor of pure mathematics from Tallahassee,
Florida.  He has been the reigning world champion of 8x8 checkers for
more than 40 years, and in that time he has lost five games (some by the
touch move rule).  Some consider his play to be close to perfection.

But he is human.  Chinook is not.  The program was written by a group at
the University of Alberta, headed by Jonathan Schaeffer who is a renown
programmer of computer chess (Phoenix) and an authority on Alpha-Beta
search and game tree search.  

Chinook exploded onto the world checker scene a few years ago, quickly
becoming the second highest rated checker player in the world, behind
only Tinsley.  It earned the right to challenge Tinsley for the world
championship title, but the match was delayed for various reasons.

As I understand it, the international federation governing checkers
later forbid Tinsley to play a computer for the title.  This prompted
Tinsley (who is a very sporting man) to resign his title, and a match
was arranged for the "de facto" world championship.

That match began Monday, August 17, 1992 in London England.  The match
is scheduled for 40 games, to be completed by August 29.  The prize fund
is not less than $20,000 -- but I am not sure of the exact amount.

The day by day results (sorry, I do not know the color assignments):

Monday August 17:
	Game 1:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 2:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2

Tuesday August 18:
	Game 3:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 4:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 5:		Chinook 0	Tinsley 1
	Game 6:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2

Wednesday August 19:
	Game 7:		Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 8:		Chinook 1	Tinsley 0	(!)

Thursday August 20:
	Game  9:	Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 10:	Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 11:	Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2
	Game 12:	Chinook 1/2	Tinsley 1/2

After 12 games the match stands:

			Chinook 6 pts.
			Tinsley 6 pts.

Wednesday's loss by Tinsley was his first in more than 10 years, and
sixth since he attained the world championship title.  The games have
reportedly been very long (on the order of five hours a game), and
Chinook has been playing with its typical computer style of complicated
games.

This may eventually wear down Tinsley, and give Chinook a better chance
of winning the match.  Most experts still consider Tinsley to be the
better player, but he is not a young man.

If Tinsley is to win this match, he must capitalize on Chinook's
weakness in the opening.  In checkers, unlike chess, the opening is of
critical importance, since the result of a bad opening is often a lost
position, rather than just an inferior or difficult position.  Chinook
generated its own opening book, but is still vulnerable to known traps,
which have accounted for the majority of its losses.

On the other hand, Chinook has recently been parallelized to increase
performance, and its omniscient endgame database now includes all
positions with seven or fewer pieces and many eight piece positions.
Perhaps it has finally overtaken the human master in playing strength.

As a disclaimer, I should mention that while Jonathan Schaeffer is my
supervisor, I am not directly involved in the Chinook project, and some
of the information I have provided here may not be perfect.  I can post
more details on the Chinook program if there is sufficient interest.
--

 - Darse Billings, 2100 CM, 7 kyu.

Go is better than Chess.  Poker is more lucrative.  Sex is more fun.
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess