WASHINGTON — Perhaps Chinook, the checker-playing computer program, should be renamed "King Me."
Canadian researchers report they have "solved" checkers, developing a program that cannot lose in a game popular with young and old alike for more than a thousand years.
"The program can achieve at least a draw against any opponent, playing either the black or white pieces," the researchers say in this week's online edition of the journal Science.
"Clearly ... the world is not going to be revolutionized" by this, said Jonathan Schaeffer, chairman of the department of computing science at the University of Alberta.
The important thing is the approach, he said.
In the past, game-playing programs have used rules of thumb — which are right most of the time, he said — to make decisions. More MagazineLane.com
