Checkers Busted, Is Chess Next?

[Javier]

You've probably read about it already:

After 18 years of computing, a University of Alberta team has solved every possible game of checkers and concluded that as long as no mistakes are made, the game will end in a draw.'

It took 18 years, because there are 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 positions in checkers.

 

18 years just to say: "It's a draw"? well, any chess player could have told you that in something like 10 seconds using common sense, you fools!

 

Yes, ok, I know, they seem to have worked out all the possible variations. Personally I'd ask them to write them down manually.

 

These Uni people seem to expect us to go "wow", but I have some interesting questions to ask:

¿who paid the salaries of the people involved in such an investigation for 18 years? I mean, 18 years on such an incredibly important task?

Same question about all the computer hardware involved.

 

IT DOESNT MATTER whether Checkers, chess, or any other sport has been worked out by a computer till the last move because chess, like other games or sports, is a lot more than knowing what the best move is, it's a battle of 2 brains, it's about seeing the shining in a kid's eyes when he has found an idea, it's about seeing a shy smile in the face of a beginner who's just checkmated someone because he/she doesn't want to offend his opponent, it's about the beauty that 2 human minds are capable of creating with just 32 bloody pieces of plastic, it's about all those things and a lot more.

With current technology, we could create robots that could play a perfect game of say, bowling, would that be of any interest? of course there is a mathematical formula which would guarantee a strike with every shot, but so what? it is the imperfection of all human activities that makes them so interesting. Get it, University of Alberta NERDS?

 

Now get your computers to find a cure against cancer or the origins of the Big Bang or some old equation from your phisics department. They will thank you. Humankind will thank you.