Scientists crack checkers

Alberta (Canada) – Canadian researchers have created an invincible Checkers program that can beat any human. Jonathan Schaeffer from the University of Alberta began working on his “Chinook” program 18 years ago and now claims to have mathematically solved the game.

Schaeffer published his results in the journal Science and documents how he had dozens of computers compute through billions possible moves. Chinook now has a database of possible moves and countermoves which, according to Schaeffer, can only allow a human to draw under the best possible circumstances.

Unconvinced ? You can now test your skills against Chinook because Schaeffer has put the program online here . Of course there isn’t much fun to a playing Checkers when you know you are about to lose, so the scientist has turned his computers onto a much more lofty goal … beating humans at Poker.