Terry McCracken wrote: You misunderstood me. All I was saying to Leto, that the average man in the street doesn't know or care, and if asked that might be a probable response.
No, I understood that it isn't you who thinks that. But what I mean is I doubt that anybody thinks that, including the average man. Because I always saw that (only) as an imaginary quote, never as a real quote from somewhere. - But never mind... this is not an important question.
Something more interesting: From the Wikipedia article which is linked at the Chinook pages, I read that "our" Kirill Kryukov, known from CCRL, has solved 3*3 chess:
One Jump Ahead is indeed a superb book. I have read it at least 5 times by now. Congrats to Jonathan Schaeffer for this milestone! He started the project somehwere around 1989 and the first chapter in his book is called 'This is going to be easy'.
So, if an 'easy' game like checkers takes 18 years to solve.... BTW, I have learned a bit of the game and it really fascinates me. Of course I have Checkerboard, Cake and Kingsrow and when you see these guys reach over 30 plies in no time, accessing the 8 piece DB soon after the opening: awesome!
vb4 wrote:Before we all get on this bandwagon someone needs to be sure that this news is correct.
Jonathan Schaeffer , released this news months ago, but I haven't been to the site for a few years, and Martin Devenport, a friend of Jonathan Schaeffer never thought to tell me, but I confirmed it with him last night.
Checkers has indeed been solved. The game is a draw. Maybe in 20 years Chess will be solved with dedication and very advanced technology, but it's by far a more daunting task.
Many might not know this, Jonathan Schaeffer is also Canadian chess master.