Historical News
April 18, 2006
A third opening has been solved. 09-13 22-17 13-22 is a proven draw.
January 20, 2006
A second opening has been solved. 09-13 21-17 05-09 is a proven
draw.
January 18, 2005
We have achieved a milestone in our quest to solve the game of
checkers. We have a tentative proof that the White Doctor opening
(10-14 22-18 12-16) is a draw. This means that our program when
playing Black (the weak side) will never lose. When playing White,
our program will never lose and may win (if the opponent makes
a mistake).
You can view our solution to the White Doctor opening. We are looking for feedback on the correctness of the proof. We encourage all checkers players to see if they can find a flaw in the computer's analysis. We know of one problem: some of the lines with huge material advantages (i.e., trivial wins) have not been expanded far enough to prove the win.
May 24, 2004
The 5 versus 5 piece subset of the 10-piece endgame databases have
been completed!
June 2, 2001: The 1st man-machine match for 10x10 checkers will be organized in France in August (13-19). The computer program Buggy will play GMI N'Diaga Samb (world number 11). See Buggy's home page.
September 10, 1998: The Chinook pages have been given an award that acknowledges web site excellence by Web This Week.
January 2, 1998: The Chinook pages have been rated "Spectacular!" and awarded 5 stars by the syndicated newspaper column "Surfing the Net with Kids".
September 9, 1997: Ron King of the Barbados wins the World's Man vs. Man 3-Move Championship Match by defeating Pat McCarthy of Ireland 7-5 with 26 draws. The match was held in Wintergardens, Weston super Mare, England.
July 29, 1997: The Southern Sates Tournament was won by Richard Hallett. Elbert Lowder finished 2nd and was followed by Gene Lindsay.
July 29, 1997: A two game exhibition match was held between Chinook and Ron King.
July 24, 1997: The friendly 20 game 11-man ballot mail match between Chinook and Jerry Childers, the current World Mail Play Champions has completed. The final score was 8-0 for Chinook with 12 draws.
July 24, 1997: The 1997 Man vs. Man 3-Move World Championship between Ron King and Pat McCarthy will be held at Western Super Mare in Great Britain from September 1 to 10.
July 24, 1997: The Northern Sates Tournament, held June 16-19 in Gilbertsville, Kentucky, was won by Harvey Kelley.
June 10, 1997: The Chinook 6-piece databases are now available! Check under the "Checkers software" link.
Mind Sports Olympiad is being held at the Royal Festival Hall, London, UK from August 18-24, 1997. Checkers is one of the featured games.
January 22, 1997: The Chinook web pages have been awarded the Editor's Choice Award by LookSmart.
January 20, 1997: The Chinook web pages have been awarded the Creative Entertainment Choice Award by Creative Technology.
November 28, 1996: Leroy Adams from Winnipeg is the new Canadian Champion after defeating the defending champion from Montreal Earl Morrison 6-5 with 19 draws.
November 16, 1996: Chinook wins the United States Open 3-Move National Tournament in Danville, Virginia with a score of 30 out of a possible 32 points. This was likely the final tournament for Chinook.
November 7, 1996: Ron King retains his Man vs. Man Go-As-You-Please World Title by defeating James Morrison 2-0 with 21 draws in their Man vs. Man Go-As-You-Please World Championship match, held from November 1-7, 1996 at the International Checker Hall of Fame in Petal, Mississippi. Don Lafferty was the referee.
October 21, 1996: Bob Cooper and Jerry Childers tied for 1st in the 1996 Kentucky State Championship.
July 15, 1996: Chinook wins the Southern States Tournament in Gilbertsville, Kentucky, ahead of Elbert Lowder, Tim Laverty, and Bob Cooper. This was Chinook's first tournament in almost two years.
June 17, 1996: Jack Francis and Cornell Checkers were declared joint winners in the inaugural TOYOTA-ACER computer vs humans checkers tournament after their final on Saturday June 15 at Bridgetown, Barbados, ended in a 0-0 draw. The final of the four-game Three-Move Restriction match-up lasted 10 hours.
June 14, 1996: Chinook and checkers is featured in an article appearing in the June edition of Discover Magazine.
May 7, 1996: A friendly 20 game 11-man ballot mail match has begun between Chinook and Jerry Childers, the current World Mail Play Champion.
April 19, 1996: Elbert Lowder defeated Richard Hallett 5-4 with 11 draws in a 20 game stake match in Miami, Florida.
March 28, 1996: Ron King retains his Man vs. Man 3-Move World Championship title by tying his match with 5 wins each (and 30 draws) against challenger Don Lafferty. The title match took place from March 18-28 in Bridgetown, Barbados. Charles Walker and James Morrison were the referees.
November 12, 1995: Elbert Lowder wins the 1995 Kentucky Tournament.
October 16, 1995: In the United States versus Great Britain match held at the International Checker Hall of Fame in Petal, Mississippi, the score was 64 wins, 14 losses, and 122 draws in favor of the United States.
August 20, 1995: James Morrison wins the United States National Open Go-As-You-Please Tournament with 28 points.
August 12, 1995: Ron King wins the World Go-As-You-Please Championship by a score of 8 wins, 2 losses, and 9 draws over Elbert Lowder.
August 8, 1995: Point Survey has rated Chinook's home page in the top 5% of all sites on the Internet.
July 25, 1995: Elbert Lowder wins the Southern States Tournament with 22 points.
July 12, 1995: Chinook's endgame database now includes all 8 piece positions, bringing the total to 443,748,401,247 resolved positions.
May 20, 1995: Ron King, has officially challenged Chinook for the Man vs. Machine World Championship title.
April
17, 1995: News item from Time Magazine:
DIED. MARION TINSLEY, 68, math professor, world
checkers champion and the first flesh-and-blood player to beat
Chinook, a checkers-playing computer whose memory contains billions
of positions; of cancer complications; in Humble, Texas.
