Has Checkers been SOLVED?

Canadian researchers report they have "solved" checkers, developing a
program that cannot lose in a game popular with young and old alike
for more than a thousand years.

"The [Chinook] program can achieve at least a draw against any
opponent, playing either the black or white pieces," the researchers
say in this week's online edition of the journal Science.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070719/...lving_checkers

Here's an abstract of the Science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...c etype=HWCIT

or

http://tinyurl.com/33tyg6

"The game of checkers has roughly 500 billion billion possible
positions (5 x 1020). The task of solving the game, determining the
final result in a game with no mistakes made by either player, is
daunting. Since 1989, almost continuously, dozens of computers have
been working on solving checkers, applying state-of-the-art artificial
intelligence techniques to the proving process. This paper announces
that checkers is now solved: perfect play by both sides leads to a
draw. This is the most challenging popular game to be solved to date,
roughly one million times more complex than Connect Four. Artificial
intelligence technology has been used to generate strong heuristic-
based game-playing programs, such as DEEP BLUE for chess. Solving a
game takes this to the next level, by replacing the heuristics with
perfection."

The Chinook Checkers Supercomputer which did the work:

http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/

While you're there, why not try your hand PLAYING against Chinook?!?

http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/play/index.html

Brett
Bishop Berkeley's Phantasmagorical Chess Interface
http://www.bbbbbb.org/