Game On

We Won’t Get The Better Of Chinook

It took 18 years to figure out all 500 billion billion combinations at checkers, but Canadian scientists have programmed a computer that can't be beaten at the 5000-year-old game. The achievement, reported in `Science' magazine, is considered a milestone in the development of artificial intelligence. Called Chinook, the checkers champion computer is the brainchild of Jonathan Schaeffer and his team at the University of Alberta. Chinook can never be beaten, and can only be tied at checkers if its opponent makes all the right moves.

According to The Los Angeles Times the task of analysing the game to its end was so difficult that from 1996 to 2001, the researchers had to put their efforts on hold because the most powerful computers of the time weren't up to the task. The team had up to 200 computers working full-time on the problem.