REVIVING THE GAME OF CHECKERS

Abstract

Abstract. In 1962, a checkers-playing program written by Arthur Samuel defeated a self-proclaimed master player, creating a sensation at the time for the fledgling field of computer science called artificial intelligence. The historical record refers to this event as having solved the game of checkers. This paper discusses achieving three different levels of solving the game: publicly (as evidenced by Samuel’s results), practically (by the checkers program Chinook, the best player in the world) and provably (by considering the 5 × 10 20 positions in the search space). The latter definition may be attainable in the near future. 1.