Checkers Solved by Computer Program

A draw isn't a win, but sometimes it feels like one when you're playing against a computer. Researchers at the University of Alberta here in Edmonton have developed a program which cannot be beat at the traditional game of checkers. It's called Chinook, and you can match wits with it for free through your Web browser on the official site. According to an article in The New York Times, it's the most complex game that has been solved to date, with billions of billions of theoretically possible board positions. "Even with the advances in computers over the past two decades, it is still impossible, in practical terms, to compute moves for all 500 billion billion board positions. Instead, the researchers took the usual starting position and then looked only at the positions that would occur during the normal course of play." They started work on the program way back in 1989.