jrc@ddnt.UUCP (08/05/85)
Samuels (Samuelson?) had a checker program in the mid-fifties which ran on an IBM 704, I think. It played a quite good game, they said. It had an adaptive evaluation function so that it was self improving. Check the literature.
ron@ada-uts.UUCP (08/09/85)
The Samuels checker program (mentioned in the first response to this note) was in fact better than all human players, including the world champion, at the time. In checkers, there's probably no comparison (today) between the best programs and the humans.
trt@rti-sel.UUCP (Tom Truscott) (08/13/85)
> The Samuels checker program (mentioned in the first response to this note) > was in fact better than all human players, including the world champion, > at the time. ... The above statement may be widely believed, but it is simply not true. First, in neither of Samuels' papers on checkers was such a claim made. Second, the Duke checkers program easily beat Samuels' program in a two game match, yet lost to a human player only ranked #2 or so. (In 1979 at least, the gap between Marion Tinsley (#1) and everyone else was just incredible. Tinsley has been champion for *many* years.) > ... In checkers, there's probably no comparison (today) between > the best programs and the humans. Frankly, I have know idea who (if anyone!) has the best checkers program. But I do agree with this statement :-). Tom Truscott
jim@randvax.UUCP (Jim Gillogly) (08/15/85)
In article <9100002@ada-uts.UUCP> ron@ada-uts.UUCP writes: > >The Samuels checker program (mentioned in the first response to this note) >was in fact better than all human players, including the world champion, >at the time. In checkers, there's probably no comparison (today) between >the best programs and the humans. I claim that's not the case. It was in the same league as state champions, but Samuel (not Samuels) didn't claim or believe that it was better than all human players. I followed the literature pretty closely at the time, being in the chess programming biz in the early 70s. -- Jim Gillogly {decvax, vortex}!randvax!jim jim@rand-unix.arpa