One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers

by Jonathan Schaeffer

The new edition of this extraordinary book tells of the creation of the world champion checkers computer program, Chinook. In only two years, Chinook had become a worthy opponent to the world champion, and within four years had defeated all the world's top human players. Jonathan Schaeffer, the originator and leader of the Chinook team, provides an engrossing account of failures and successes. He describes the human story behind the program and his own feelings in learning from mistakes and technical problems in a continuous effort to improve Chinook's performance. Beginning in 1988, we follow the development of Chinook from an innocent question asked over lunch through to the final match against then world champion, Marion Tinsley, and ultimately to its recent triumph, perfecting checkers. As the story unfolds, readers are introduced to its key figures, and to the rules of checkers and the basics of computer game programs. As a result, all those interested in computing and games will enjoy this book.

Genres: Mathematics

496 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1997

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is hard to categorize, it covers so much: programming a computer to win at checkers, certainly, but also the history of a dying competitive game, the story of an undisputed human champion, the nature of what makes a game and an opponent exciting, and many other threads. A fantastic book (at least for me). Already read the book? You can also play his program (good luck!).

[Cory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for a class in my sophomore year of college. The book chronicles the development of the checkers playing program which eventually came to be known as Chinook.

Jonathan Schaeffer somehow makes the entire world of competitive checkers seem like a lively place full of bright characters. He and his team create Chinook and enter it into a number of Checkers competitions. Though they step on a few toes and have a few setbacks only the way, Chinook eventually becomes the preeminent checkers-playing program and bests the top human players. Despite being non-fiction the story is filled with a lot of heart and plays out more dramatically than one might expect.

What's interesting is that in the grand scheme of things the book is relegated thematically to the genre of Man vs. Machine, but the author is quite obviously rooting for the Machine. Chinook eventually goes on to "solve" checkers. This means that it can only ever win or draw. After providing some decent characterization for some of the bigger names in the professional checkers circuit its surprising to find the Schaeffer has no remorse for solving the game. I suppose that humans can still play humans on an even keel but surely some of the magic and appeal of checkers must be lost. Jonathan Schaeffer essentially thrusts himself into the Checkers community, successfully programs a computer to beat the players at their own game, and then solves the game completely. There's no retrospective that accounts for all the checkers enthusiasts that have been displaced in the wake of his success.

Still, he takes an awfully boring subject and turns it into a relatively fresh narrative.

[Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been interested in computer game playing programs, so this book caught my eye. Schaeffer writes in a nice, easy style that details the development, testing, debugging, and other trials and tribulations dealing with the Chinook checkers playing program and attempts to create a program that could capture the World Checkers Champion title held by Marion Tinsley.

As a software developer myself that has looked into such game playing programs, I had hoped for more details on the code and algorithms used or on how the parallelism was implemented to aid in the game-tree search. I am assuming that some of the published papers listed in the Appendices will have more details on this to satisfy my curiosity. I realize that Schaeffer had to walk the fine line between something too technical that would alienate the checkers enthusiasts and too checkers-focused for the computer-savvy readers. All in all, it was a successful effort and a compelling story. (I made the mistake of getting into the habit of reading 10-12 pages before turning in at night. When I got to part detailing the preparations for and playing of the second match against Tinsley, I got so engrossed in the narrative that I stayed up 3 hours past my normal bedtime.)

Before I started the book, I hadn't realized that this effort was over 20 years ago. As I was reading about the problems of connecting to remote systems via modem in the early '90s, I tried to remember what I was doing back then and remember having similar frustrations. It was nice to "relive" what was the height of computational power and Internet utilization from those days.

[Alpha · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 - If you liked Behind Deep Blue or the Maven thesis, this will be right up your alley. A wonderful history on the progression of Chinook as a checkers AI on through the solving of checkers. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys reading about computer game AI.

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly gripping account of the challenge to build a computer AI to beat the then undefeated checkers world champion.