Chinook (draughts player)
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Chinook is a computer program that plays English draughts, developed around 1989 at the University of Alberta, led by Jonathan Schaeffer. Other developers are Rob Lake, Paul Lu, Martin Bryant, and Norman Treloar.
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[edit] Man vs. Machine World Champion
Chinook is the first computer program to win the world champion title in a competition against humans. In 1990 it won the right to play in the human World Championship by being second to Marion Tinsley in the US Nationals. At first the American Checkers Federation and English Draughts Association were against the participation of a computer in a human championship. When Tinsley resigned his title in protest, the ACF and EDA created the new title Man vs. Machine World Championship, and competition proceeded. Tinsley won with four wins to Chinook's two.
In a rematch, Chinook was declared the Man-Machine World Champion in checkers in 1994 in a match against Marion Tinsley after six drawn games, and Tinsley's withdrawal for health reasons. While Chinook became the world champion, it had never defeated the best checkers player of all time, Tinsley, who was significantly superior to even his closest peer.
The championship continued with Chinook defending its title against Don Lafferty when it lost one game, won one and drew 18. After the match, Jonathan Schaeffer decided not to let Chinook compete anymore, but instead try to solve checkers. It was rated at 2814.
[edit] Algorithm
Chinook's program algorithm includes an opening book, a library of opening moves, from games played by grandmasters, deep search algorithm, good move evaluation function and the end-game database having all positions with eight or fewer pieces. The linear handcrafted evaluation function considered several features of the game board including piece count, kings count, trapped kings, turn, runaway checkers (unimpeded path to be kinged) and other minor factors. All of Chinook's 'knowledge' was programmed by its creators, rather than 'learned' with artificial intelligence.
[edit] History
Jonathan Schaeffer wrote a book about Chinook called One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers.
On May 24, 2004 [1], Chinook completed its 10 piece database with 5 pieces on each side.
On August 2, 2004 [2], the Chinook team announced that the tournament opening in English draughts called the White Doctor (10-14 22-18 12-16) has proven to be a draw.
On January 18, 2006, the Chinook team announced that the 09-13 21-17 05-09 opening has been proven to be a draw.
On April 18, 2006, the Chinook team announced that the 09-13 22-17 13-22 opening has been proven to be a draw.
