Has Checkers Been Solved?
I wouldn't be all that surprised if instead he finds that some of the
156 accepted three-move tournament choices are not draws. After all,
the ones that were rejected were obvious losses, so openings that
provided one player sufficient advantage to narrowly force a win with
perfect play might not have been noted.
Obviously I can't say for sure until the computer analysis is
complete. You could very well be correct. But the trend has been in
the other direction. It used to be that there were 144 accepted 3-
move ballots. 12 more were added a few years back based to a large
extent on computer analysis that shows that despite their seeming
unbalance (which was why they originally were left out), they are
likely to be draws. One of them, "The Black Hole," a notoriously
difficult ballot, under computer analysis is showing more and more
drawing lines.
As checkers is analyzed more deeply, more drawing resources seem to be
found all the time. But it would be a rather exciting find if one of
the accepted ballots could be shown to be a win!
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