Game Of Checkers Research Articles

Preface

With this special issue on artificial intelligence (AI), the IBM Journal of Research and Development continues a tradition, started in the earliest days of the field, of providing a forum for the dissemination of IBM work in this field. This tradition began in the 1950s with the publication of such seminal papers as “Intelligent behavior in Problem-Solving Machines” by Herbert Gelernter and Nathaniel Rochester, and “Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers” by Arthur L. Samuel. In 1986 a special issue of the Journal devoted to the topic of knowledge systems was published. Papers in the present issue are intended to indicate some of the recent work in AI by IBM people.

In Memoriam: Arthur Samuel: Pioneer in Machine Learning

Arthur Samuel (1901-1990) was a pioneer of artificial intelligence research. From 1949 through the late 1960s, he did the best work in making computers learn from their expe-rience. His vehicle for this work was the game of checkers.

Communicative Effectiveness of Learning Disabled and Normally Achieving 10- to 13-Year-Old Boys

The effectiveness of the communication skills of 25 learning disabled and 25 normally achieving boys was compared using an instructional task (i.e., having the boys teach the experimenter how to play checkers). The speaker's effectiveness in considering listener needs was evaluated based on the speaker's ability to convey essential information about the game of checkers and the speaker's response to the listener's verbal and nonverbal cues of confusion. As predicted, learning disabled boys' communication skills were found to be less effective than those of their normally achieving peers. Specifically, learning disabled boys: (a) talked more (i.e., they used more words and sentences) but said less (i.e., they provided less information) than normally achieving boys; (b) appeared more comfortable doing than describing (i.e., enhancing verbal explanations with gestures and demonstrations); (c) were less effective adapting messages to the needs of the listener than their normally achieving peers (e.g., they often repeated rather than reformulated what they said prior to the listener's expression of confusion). The communication differences between learning disabled and normally achieving boys suggest the need for special intervention and instruction.

N by N Checkers is Exptime Complete

The game of Checkers can easily be generalized to be played on an N by N board and the complexity of deciding questions about positions regarded as a function of N. This paper considers mainly the question of whether a particular player can force a win from a given position and also the question of what is the best move in a given position. Each of these problems is shown to be complete in exponential time. This means that any algorithm to solve them must take time which rises exponentially with respect to some power of N and moreover that they are amongst the hardest problems with such a time bound.For instance if there are any problems solvable in exponential time but not in polynomial space, then these two problems are amongst them.

“Chek-Math”—a new old game

The game “chek-math” is a post-instructional, drill activity based on the game of checkers. The object of the game, naturally, is to win at checkers, but to do this one must be more competent than one's opponent in the mathematics areas coordinated with the activity. The necessary materials are readily available to most teachers and students or can easily be constructed. Two individuals can play the game, or small teams can play.

Recreation: Eight-Marker Puzzle

The eight-marker puzzle is a variation of the ancient game of checkers, but it is played on just one row of squares. Playing the game helps students develop problem-solving ability and gaming strategy analysis.

A comparison and evaluation of three machine learning procedures as applied to the game of checkers

This paper presents two new machine learning procedures used to arrive at “knowledgeable” static evaluators for checker board positions. The static evaluators are compared with each other, and with the linear polynomial used by Samuel [9], using two different numerical indices reflecting the extent to which they agree with the choices of checker experts in the course of tabulated book games. The new static evaluators are found to perform about equally well, despite the relative simplicity of the second; and they perform noticably better than the linear polynomial. An indication of the significance of the absolute values of these two numerical indices is provided by a discussion of a simple, purely heuristic, static evaluator, whose performance indices lie between those of the polynomial and those of the other two static evaluators.

Annual Review in Automatic Programming, Vol. 6, Part 1: Some Studies in Machine Learning using the game of Checkers. By A. L. Samuel. Pp. iv, 36. 18s. 1969. (Pergamon.)

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Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers. II—Recent Progress

A new signature tablet echnique is described together with an improved book learning procedure which is thougthot be much superior to the linear polynomial method described earlier. Full use is made of the so called alpha-beta pruning and several forms of forward pruning to restrict the spread of the move tree and to permit the programt o look ahead to a much greater depth than it otherwise could do. While still unable to outplay checker masters, the program's playing ability has been greatly improved.

ON THE APPLICATION OF DYNAMIC PROGRAMING TO THE DETERMINATION OF OPTIMAL PLAY IN CHESS AND CHECKERS

Abstract : A great deal of effort has been expended in connection with the use of digital computers to play chess and checkers. The most successful has been the checker-playing program of Samuel. It is of some interest then to indicate how the theory of dynamic programming can be used to determine optimal play in the great majority of Pawn-King end-games in Chess, with computers currently available, and in all probability, to determine optimal play for the entire game of checkers. The basic methods are outlined involving as they do the concept of semigroups in structure.

Some Studies in Machine Learning Using the Game of Checkers

Two machine-learning procedures have been investigated in some detail using the game of checkers. Enough work has been done to verify the fact that a computer can be programmed so that it will lear...

AN ANALYSIS OF NINETY CASES OF FUNCTIONAL DISEASE IN SOLDIERS

In Wrong Twin, by Harry Leon Wilson, there is a character, a civil war pensioner, who seems of particular interest at the present time. Judge Penniman, whom Dave Cowan called old Flapdoodle, had been granted a pension for his services in the Civil war. The Judge had been obliged to abandon all thoughts of a career. had been debarred by obscure ailments from active participation in our industrial strife. He could never perform the least work that required muscular effort; but he could always go to the harness shop for his game of checkers. He complained of sciatica and of various other painful symptoms, neuralgia mebbe. He always had the most comfortable chair available and was peevish if anyone else took it; he always demanded consideration and sympathy from his wife, whose earnings as a dressmaker, and his daughter, whose pay as a school teacher, served to piece