r/todayilearned • u/PeasantLich • 13h ago
TIL that Checkers has been a solved game for almost 20 years. Optimal play is unbeatable, and two opponents playing optimally always reach a stalemate.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231216842_Checkers_Is_Solved10.0k
u/jointheredditarmy 13h ago
Wow that is actually a really well balanced game given 1 player goes first
5.6k
u/onehotoneshot 12h ago
Why don’t they just go at the same time
Are they stupid
1.9k
u/Daztur 12h ago
Serious answer to a silly question: the thing I love the best about Diplomacy is that everyone does go at the same time, it allows for so much strategizing and second guessing based on trying to tell what the other person is about to do and countering it.
1.7k
u/kylel999 12h ago edited 12h ago
My friends and I played this once. Spent nearly an hour deliberating and meeting privately in another room with another and making deals..
Everyone betrayed eachother turn 1
68
u/LanceFree 12h ago
During the human potential movement in the 1990s, we played a game with seemingly no way to win. The lesson or learning was that they never said the two teams were opposed, and if they worked together, both sides would win. When we kept losing and losing, things got heated, some people wanted to try their idea or nothing at all. I was told some people on the other team came close to throwing punches. My own behavior was also faulty. Basically after two turns, I checked out, and started to hate the type-A people. Good exercise.
→ More replies (3)10
u/lakewood2020 12h ago
Is that the zero sum game?
→ More replies (2)15
u/LanceFree 12h ago
We called it “The Black/White Game”, but it had many names, I’m sure. Don’t think you do it these days where everyone has a phone. It was one of the better exercises we did that week.
→ More replies (6)719
u/Daztur 12h ago
It's not a real Diplomacy game unless at least one friendship is ruined.
279
u/dovetc 12h ago
It's also not a real Diplomacy game unless there arises some fringe movement case where even the robust rulebook is silent and the internet must be consulted as to how it resolves.
→ More replies (2)130
u/disisathrowaway 11h ago
The first group of folks I played with in HS were mostly kids from the debate team.
The fringe cases would take so damn long to resolve.
→ More replies (3)92
u/dovetc 11h ago
If you don't like things that take a long time to resolve, you don't like Diplomacy!
→ More replies (1)19
120
u/Lord0fHats 12h ago
The final boss of friendship.
31
→ More replies (3)49
u/good_guylurker 12h ago
That's monopoly's turf. If you wanna occupy it, you must pay rent.
122
u/I_only_post_here 12h ago
The best way to win at Monopoly is to not play it.
The second best way to win at Monopoly is to buy up as many houses as possible, then refuse to upgrade to hotels, and cockblock all the other players from being able to buy houses.
42
u/k8track 11h ago
I grew to truly loathe Monopoly and I reached a point where I have no desire to ever play it again. There was only one time where I had a fun time. That was the time when I decided that I would secretly pursue a completely different goal than everyone else... to hoard all of the one-dollar bills. And nobody noticed until they were finally all gone, and then everyone finally saw my huge pile of ones (sitting right there in the open the whole time). I won! That was the most fun I ever had playing that accursed game.
→ More replies (3)7
u/elephantoe3 10h ago
I had a friend who did this once, except he hid them all in his sock. Yeah, it was probably the funniest game of Monopoly I've ever played
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (5)54
u/doug1963 12h ago edited 10h ago
The "building shortage" also prevents buying hotels, as the rules state that you must have four houses first. It also prevents selling hotels down to houses, because the house tokens must be available to be placed on the property. This means that hotels have to be sold completely. I win 100% of the time using this strategy (oh, and no Free Parking payouts--it's not part of the rules, and is the reason games can last hours and hours).
ed: changed "housing shortage" to "building shortage".
24
u/Daztur 12h ago
Also you have to use the auction rules, which also speeds up the game.
The only house rule I like to use is to allow people to buy properties ADJACENT to where they land (but still a max of 1/turn) as it speeds up the game and makes it a bit more strategic as you can't just mindlessly buy any property you can or you'll run out of money.
Game is decent enough that way.
→ More replies (0)16
u/einTier 11h ago
Most of the complaints people have about Monopoly stem from all the "house rules" people insist you play with.
The one valid complaint is that it isn't much fun. It wasn't designed to be a fun game, it was designed to teach you to hate capitalism.
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (5)21
u/annul 11h ago
This means that hotels have to be sold completely.
a hotel cannot be sold without 4 houses in the bank. this is true even when calculating bankruptcy assets.
source: tournament monopoly player
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (5)23
u/AgentFoo 11h ago
Monopoly is a game that lasts no less than 90 minutes longer than anyone wants to play Monopoly
27
38
u/Tex75455 11h ago
Only tried this once in college. We made it exactly 1.5 turns before one guy threw a chair, screamed about what horrible friends we were, and stormed into his room and slammed the door. We really should have just stuck to the "it's Saturday night let's drink" template.
Shame on us for trying to do something different
→ More replies (1)34
u/caribou16 8h ago
December 31, 1999, being an incredibly cool teenaged individual, I was of course engaged in a 7 man game of Diplomacy on new years eve. I executed a timely backstab that resulted in my one good friend getting knocked out of the game and he still refuses to speak to me, to this day. It's been almost 27 years.
The other highlight of the evening, my other friend who was hosting's parents were throwing a NYE party upstairs and we were playing in the basement.
At the stroke of midnight, we flipped the main breaker on the electrical panel.
(For context for the younger folks, there was a tremendous amount of talk in the mainstream news leading up to the millennium that computers would stop working, power plants would go offline, airplanes would fall out of the sky, etc etc as a result)
I remember just....SUDDEN SILENCE from upstairs, followed by panicked screaming.
Was a great night.
16
→ More replies (2)19
u/HermionesWetPanties 11h ago
One of my professors who taught us the game didn't talk to his sister in law for 6 years after playing a game with her
41
u/disisathrowaway 11h ago
Everyone betrayed eachother turn 1
I played a lot of Diplo in high school (thanks to my AP European History teacher who made it part of his class!) and in college as well.
New folks fucking LOVE to betray in the first couple of turns and then LOVE to crash out when their betrayal doesn't work all that well.
The game taught me the concept of social capital, and that it turns out if every time you play you backstab, eventually no one will trust you even on a fresh board. Had one dude who stopped playing with us entirely because he was so conniving that no one would ever work with him. His final game with us, as a known rake, was as Germany. Turn one was Russia, Austria-Hungary, Britain and France all deciding the partition.
25
u/Vet_Leeber 11h ago
New folks fucking LOVE to betray in the first couple of turns and then LOVE to crash out when their betrayal doesn't work all that well.
Which is a shame, because the consequences of my actions catching up to me is always my favorite part of these kinds of games.
→ More replies (7)28
u/LabyrinthConvention 12h ago
Hahaha I need to bring this to game night
→ More replies (4)19
u/pirate-irl 11h ago
I've had some great games with friends where we just do 1 turn a week and communicate via email and text.
Only rule is absolutely no showing/sharing contents of emails/texts - you can say what someone sent you but you can't share the actual privileged conversation or images of it or anything. It works great gives even busy friends time to do some thinking/'get a good turn in'.
The turn executes at 7PM on Sunday we resolve it and you're back to lying to your friends on Monday morning for a week!
89
u/eskimospy212 12h ago
Diplomacy is my all time favorite game because there is no luck. It is 100% on your ability to read and convince people.
That being said it’s hard to find exactly seven people and at least one person usually gets knocked out early so it’s a bit of a scheduling challenge.
29
u/TryingToWriteIt 12h ago
It sucks to be Italy and be knocked out by the third turn then have hours to wait for your friends to finish…
→ More replies (4)6
u/Rhodie114 9h ago
It never occurred to me that some people try to play this game in long sessions. Every time I've played, the game takes place over weeks. Play it 1-2 turns per day at a pre-scheduled time. The best part of playing it that way is how much time you have to break off and scheme with other players without being overheard.
It leads to great moments where you realize that the friend who spent an hour over text convincing you to help him out with a joint attack on Austria-Hungary was actually letting another player write all their messages, in exchange for support elsewhere on the board.
→ More replies (1)11
→ More replies (7)6
u/Tathas 12h ago
Republic of Rome is like that also. Although it's best with 5.
And it's been a very long time since I was able to I have 4 other like minded, conniving friends who are able to compartmentalize gameplay vs friendship, and who can also have 5+ dedicated hours for a game.
The Battlestar Galactica board game is like that too. My wife and my friend's wife played with us once to get it up to 5 players, and they both said never again, lol. 3 players just isn't the same.
→ More replies (2)25
u/C4dfael 12h ago
My world history class played this in high school. Fun game. My team took second place because our final move was invalidated by the teacher because I misspelled Ukraine and I’m not still mad about it 25 years later.
→ More replies (5)13
u/laxrulz777 12h ago
Diplomacy is an amazing game. Really wish my family likes it. I'd love to have a week between turns and just reveal the moves together on the weekend. But alas, I'm alone
→ More replies (2)8
u/Daztur 11h ago
There's a pretty big online Diplomacy community. That's how I generally play. But face to face diplomacy is something else, a lot more freewheeling and chaotic in my experience.
10
u/disisathrowaway 11h ago
The tense negotiations in face-to-face games cannot be replicated.
Plus the paranoia that sinks in when you see two of your neighbors go in to another room, often for way too long.
To be clear, I love playing asynch games online, but the in-person experience is absolutely exquisite.
→ More replies (1)8
→ More replies (22)7
u/sirseatbelt 11h ago
I heard of a story of a game played by mail, and one of the players learned the writing styles of his friends so he could send fake strategy letters.
→ More replies (2)35
u/Iced_Yehudi 12h ago
Since it’s already balanced, then going first is the same as going second. Which means if they both go at the same time, the second player gets to go first twice, and the first player has to go second twice, which doesn’t seem very fair
→ More replies (19)13
128
u/chadfromthefuture 12h ago
What does optimal play look like in a nutshell?
241
u/Watermelon407 12h ago
As a serious reply, it's 11>15 followed by 22>17, then just move pieces towards the center (general game mechanics), always move in clusters/protected moves (prevents multicapture), and don't move backrow pieces until forced to do so.
→ More replies (3)71
u/Artistic-Flamingo-92 11h ago
Any rando attempting this will absolutely not play perfectly.
If interested, play a game against the browser version of Chinook.
115
u/Watermelon407 11h ago
Not at all, but he asked for "in a nutshell".
36
u/Artistic-Flamingo-92 11h ago
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify because it sometimes feels like people think that once a game is solved, there’s little point in playing, because you can just play perfectly and you will always draw.
However, for games as complicated as checkers, playing perfectly without a look-up table is not some simply implemented strategy and is essentially impossible for anyone who is not a “checkers grandmaster”.
→ More replies (3)14
u/MeeTy 11h ago
For "checkers grandmasters", is there still meaningful play at the highest level of play or is it an obvious draw?
13
u/Artistic-Flamingo-92 10h ago edited 9h ago
There used to be world championships.
The story about Marion Tinsley and Chinook is worth reading (and can be found on Marion’s Wikipedia page).
Nowadays, I don’t think there are official world champions or “grandmasters.”
Like Chess, Checkers was already a game that often ends in draws between very strong players, so a match involves several games so that the tie can be broken.
Edit: I stand corrected on the champions and grandmasters. Honestly, should have assume that competition was still going. I had some vague recollection of a competition being discontinued.
4
u/LordThyro 10h ago
You think wrong. They still hold national GAYP checkers tournaments, and there are still grandmasters.
→ More replies (2)313
u/HVAChelpprettyplease 12h ago
You don’t make any mistakes and always make the right moves. Easy
→ More replies (21)→ More replies (8)18
u/DragonBank 12h ago
A big part of why it is so easy to solve is due to the starting position leading to very few lines relative to actual possible board states. But the reality is we already knew optimal checkers openings anyway. So standard checkers opening strategy is the answer. There are many ways to play for a draw. Every first move is still a draw. And in the first 8 moves or so every drawing line is already theory without a computer.
39
u/Kor_Phaeron_ 7h ago edited 5h ago
Btw, with perfect play from both sides, chess is widely believed by theorists to be a draw. Since we can't solve chess due to its complexity there are strong data points for this conclusion.
- The data reveals that as material is reduced, the defensive resources of the trailing or equal side scale incredibly efficiently. Even massive material imbalances—such as a lone King defending against a King and two Knights—are mathematically proven forced draws. This strongly suggests that White's tiny fraction-of-a-pawn first-move advantage is far too small to force a breakthrough against perfect play.
- In game theory, an advantage of the first move (+0.20 and +0.40) is regarded as a "temporary initiative" rather than a winning advantage. To actually force a checkmate, an evaluation typically needs to cross a threshold closer to +1.5 or +2.0, which Black can easily prevent from the start by simply mirroring or neutralizing White's space.
- Human data at the World Championship level shows that when a player chooses an opening designed strictly to equalize rather than create dynamic imbalances, White cannot force a win.
- In elite computer tournaments like the TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship) if engines are allowed to play from the standard starting position rather than forced, unbalanced openings, virtually 100% of the games end in a draw.
→ More replies (3)275
u/Shimgar 12h ago
It's actually an interesting phenomenon that so many board games just happen to result in draws with perfect play. Especially given most of them were invented long before we could ever know or prove that. Chess, Checkers, Othello, probably Go.
60
u/Aarakocra 11h ago
Go is not balanced for a draw, and the rules have evolved over time to specifically balance it better. It is point based so a draw could have only happened if the number was specifically even. But it favors the first player enough that there are points for going second called komi that didn't get implemented until the 20th century. And even then, the amount has changed from as low as 2.5 to 7.5 (the 0.5 is to let second player win in a tie).
→ More replies (5)314
u/sicklyslick 11h ago
Survivorship bias.
There's probably many many more board games that do not result in a draw (or balanced mechanics) which became either unfun or unpopular enough to have disappeared forever.
→ More replies (3)44
u/WES_WAS_ROBBED 11h ago
ooo now i want to know about all the extinct unfair games!
63
u/yodatsracist 10h ago edited 6h ago
Tafl games, also known as Viking Chess. Very fun to mess around with but it’s (obviously) unbalanced and one side has an advantage. These were popular in Scandinavia and are mentioned in the Norse sagas. They were played by the Sami (indigenous non-Indo-European group in Norway, Sweden, and Finland) until the 18th century, though they seem to originate with the Norse.
Fox games (Fox and Geese, Fox and Hounds, etc) are potentially related. They were once popular among the Anglo-Saxons, but variants are played as far away as Sri Link.
Both involve attackers and defenders, with the attackers having more pieces and the defenders being hard to capture.
Both are great with kids! They make you think in different ways. I recommend them, even though in most variants the defenders have an advantage. Edit: Someone below pointed out that Wikipedia talks about how the first published variant was misunderstood and in the original rules it actually favored the attackers. This is true, but most variants overall favor defenders. See here for way too much detail.
Edit 2: if you're looking on US Amazon, the version I had of Tafl is available as "Hnefatafl - The Viking Game - Authentic National Museums Scotland Version". I bought it in about 1998 and it was published by English Heritage, the organization that runs many of England's most famous sites, including Stone Henge. I guess this is the Scottish version. It's also on UK Amazon as "Hnefatafl - The Viking Game", also the blue box Museum of Scotland version. It's got a cool cloth mat instead of a board, and the pieces are such cool looking Viking soldiers I played with them even when I wasn't playing. They're modeled after the Lewis Chessmen (12th-century Viking chess pieces carved out of walrus ivory), which is slightly anachronistic but who cares. I introduced it to my nephews and son and they were obsessed with it. It's expensive like 45 dollars/30 pounds, round about, but I got my money's worth over 30 years. It's literally lasted a generation. There are also a couple of Chinese knock-offs on Amazon but they seem to be roughly the same price. If you're going to buy a Tafl game, it seems like maybe worth getting some version with cool looking pieces. If you go down to the end of the Wikipedia for Tafl games, you can also find places to play online. Not everyone prefers the English Heritage/National Museum of Scotland re-creation.
I have no special recommendation for Fox games, but you could probably just draw the board on paper and find the appropriate number of pieces.
→ More replies (2)20
u/HotterRod 8h ago
From the Wikipedia article you link to:
There have long been controversies concerning imbalance of the game, as rules for certain modern tafl games strongly favor the defenders. This imbalance results from a mistranslation of Linnaeus' rules for tablut, a Sámi tafl game from the 1700s, which were subsequently used as the basis for reconstructions of rules for medieval tafl. Newer translations of Linnaeus' tablut rules reveal a balanced game. After this change, tablut can be said to be slightly in favor of the attackers rather than the defenders: according to statistics, the attackers overall win marginally more often (on average 9% more).
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (3)12
141
u/94746382926 12h ago
Chess and go are not mathematically solved
→ More replies (9)43
u/Shimgar 12h ago
No, but it's almost certain Chess is a draw with perfect play. Go I admit is maybe a little more speculative, but it's known to be very, very close to even.
92
u/sampat6256 12h ago
If you let two engines play each other without any restrictions, they almost always draw, so youre not wrong, but we don't yet know if that's a technological limitation or an inevitable feature of the game.
26
u/liberty 10h ago
That said, when top chess engines do not draw, white almost always wins, and it's not even close. So the game is somehow both highly balanced and highly imbalanced at the same time.
12
→ More replies (2)8
u/Willrkjr 8h ago
Well, that’s sort of the thing about balance. If the other guy has a gun, and I have a knife starting at 100 yards, with “perfect play” it might be a “draw” in that I can’t get any closer and he can’t land the shot. But to play “perfectly” is much easier for the guy with the gun than it is me trying to close the distance on him with my knife, and in the event players aren’t playing perfectly one side gets to their win condition easier
→ More replies (8)16
u/imisstheyoop 11h ago
And the Shannon number makes it so that we never will! Such a beautiful thing.
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (8)19
u/porkchop487 12h ago
Is it almost certain? The top chess bots still can beat each other
26
u/chinavirus100 10h ago
Matches between chess bots use openings which are chosen for them, after which the bots take over. Otherwise they would probably just keep using the same drawish openings.
→ More replies (4)11
u/Soft-Run-3577 11h ago
I am not sure this is true for modern bots from the standard starting position. In slightly imbalanced positions, its easier to see differences but I would guess that they would never play into these unbalanced positions under normal play.
→ More replies (2)37
u/MortemEtInteritum17 12h ago
I mean, these board games only became popular bacause they seem well balanced for both sides, even if you can't prove it.
8
u/wampey 11h ago
The game of go typically could never end in a draw if playing by a standard ruleset where a fractional 0.5 Komi point is given to white for going second. There are different levels of Komi given but they always have the 0.5 point afaik. If you don’t play with a non standard then I imagine draws could be pretty frequent between two professionals. They win and lose by that half point frequently enough if they get to end game. I think as a beginner, I’ve had a game down to 1.5 points before in scoring.
Go is a fascinating game and after I learned it a bit, it took over my love of chess.
→ More replies (22)5
26
→ More replies (17)17
u/OverlordMMM 12h ago
It's the classic case of game theory with a 2-player mirrored game with perfect knowledge by all players.
As long as the first player plays perfectly, they cannot lose. Simultaneously, in those conditions, the first player will also always win unless player 2 also plays perfectly.
→ More replies (1)7
u/bluesam3 6h ago
Those conditions are not sufficient: trivially, you can have a game where the only available move is "resign", in which going first makes you lose. You can extend that backwards with an arbitrarily long zugzwang sequence.
→ More replies (1)
2.5k
u/Aggravating-Ride4109 12h ago
Meanwhile, my dumb ass can't even guarantee a tie game in tic tak toe sometimes....
1.4k
u/zeekar 12h ago
When my elder daughter was about 5 my wife attempted to demonstrate the fact that no matter how good you get at tic-tac-toe, the best you can do against an opponent who knows what they're doing is tie.
But something distracted her and the kid won.
To this day at age 22 she still refuses to believe anything is impossible.
346
u/fizzlefist 12h ago
Remember: waiting to pounce on an enemy’s mistake is a legitimate strategy. Just ask Australian Olympic Gold Medalist Steven Bradbury
102
u/Mama_Mega 12h ago
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." -Sun Tzu
→ More replies (5)11
u/Lurkerbot47 9h ago
"'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.' -Napoleon" -Sun Tzu (Wayne Gretzky)
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (7)28
u/MightyKrakyn 12h ago
Or American Olympic Figure Skater Tonya Harding
25
u/MildGenevaSuggestion 11h ago
And then there was this girl who
Swore that one day she would be a figure skating champion
But when
She finally made it
She saw
Some other girl who was better...
→ More replies (3)12
u/NullValueField 11h ago
Ah yes, the age-old strategy of absolutely ganking your opponent via a hired thug. One of the classic mistakes.
43
u/BlackSecurity 11h ago
Well in a way she's not wrong, because just because a game has been solved, doesn't mean the players can play perfectly every time. Even in a simple game of tic tac toe, human error is pretty much the only thing for you to rely on.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (8)82
u/historianLA 12h ago
Time to watch War Games (1983) with Matthew Broderick... "The only winning move is not to play"
24
u/BrohanGutenburg 12h ago
Or Wrath of Khan (1982) and the famous Kobayashi Maru exercise
→ More replies (1)98
35
u/unafraidrabbit 12h ago
I made a guide. Big X is where you start. Wherever they go for O, go to that square and follow the line for your next moves. You can win if you go corner and they go middle but not guaranteed. If you go middle only side Os give a guaranteed win.
26
u/kkell806 11h ago
→ More replies (1)14
u/facw00 11h ago
Hmm, when I searched for xkcd, I was expecting to find this (from 2012):
https://xkcd.com/1002/Your link does make sense in context though.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (5)9
8
→ More replies (11)24
u/markov-271828 12h ago
I still remember when my ten year old nephew beat me at Pente
5
u/chromatic_megafauna 12h ago
Oh hey, do people still play Pente? I grew up playing my dad's childhood one, but I've never heard of anyone else owning or playing it.
→ More replies (1)
1.3k
u/mayy_dayy 12h ago
The only winning move is not to play
233
u/ThortheAssGuardian 12h ago
JUST SAY NO
to strategically trivial gameplay
77
u/1CEninja 12h ago
So keep in mind not all games are ideal for all audiences.
Checkers is a fantastic game for youngsters that don't yet understand meaningful strategy and tactics, and can be used as an entry point into more interesting and tactical games.
Call it a...gateway game. And absolutely say yes ;)
→ More replies (6)48
u/Beyond-Dizzy 12h ago
So checkers has a lot in common with Tetris and online dating, it would seem.
→ More replies (4)21
55
→ More replies (7)10
437
u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 12h ago
I hate it when devs don't update their games smh
97
u/Callec254 12h ago
Balance patch notes: King/doubled checkers are new equipped with flamethrowers to help break stalemates.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)19
u/Far-Maintenance-1947 11h ago
How do they expect me to replay this game without roguelike mechanics and New Game+?
→ More replies (6)
238
188
u/thevaultguy 12h ago
Just wait until Checkers 2 with “triple king” and “boomerang” DLC. Plus the CheckPass is always giving new skins and boards.
20
u/french_snail 12h ago
DLC aside that sounds like a fun way to mix it up, like how they have UNO, RISK, etc with crazy rules and spin offs
→ More replies (2)7
u/UpAndAdamNP 12h ago
PAC Man rules: Checkers can move from the top of your opponent's side back down to your starting space!
→ More replies (1)6
u/TempleMade_MeBroke 11h ago
"This game needs a Battle Royale mode if it's ever going to survive"
-Arin Hanson
→ More replies (3)7
u/Dreadgoat 10h ago
Checkers 2 kinda exists already, just not widely known or played.
There's international checkers which is played with way more pieces and "flying kings" (think a chess queen)
And there's forced-start american checkers where the first 3 moves of the game are chosen at random to eliminate optimal starts
113
u/rmwpnb 12h ago
Yeah it’s easy to win when you… NEVER MOVE YOUR BACK ROW!
19
16
u/december151791 11h ago
Can't force your opponent to move a back row piece huh? Sounds like a skill issue.
50
u/L1mpD 12h ago
Some variants of the game require you to take a jump if one is available, so you can draw out the back row
→ More replies (4)67
u/Larry_The_Red 12h ago
the official rules require it. variants would be versions that don't go by the official rules.
→ More replies (7)16
u/GONKworshipper 12h ago
My brother and I figured this out when we were ten so the game just became who would crack first
→ More replies (1)7
5
u/ASerialArsonist 11h ago
I was always super good at checkers as a kid and I've found that moving your backrow first is a giga Chad power move and playing aggressive can benefit.
Not that I was playing against anyone who gave a shit for most of the time except one competition. But that's my cool anecdote, very neat.
→ More replies (2)5
u/Pattches_Ohoulihan 11h ago
That's one small step for man! One giant... I have a dream!
→ More replies (1)
226
u/RangerEquivalent4120 12h ago
Yeah right. Next you’re gonna tell me that tic tac toe is a “solved game”
113
u/Tiny_Tabaxi 12h ago
Mate, you're not gonna believe this...
22
38
u/RVelts 12h ago
Rock paper scissors on the other hand…
→ More replies (14)81
u/Zomburai 12h ago
Rock-Paper-Scissors is a solved game. Whatever my opponent picks, they concede when I threaten to hit them with a rock
→ More replies (7)14
u/Mufasa_is__alive 12h ago
If your not immediately threatening your opponent with nuclear annihilation in rock paper scissors, then you're not playing correctly
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (5)8
u/Jwagner0850 12h ago
How about connect 4?
→ More replies (1)27
u/thprk 12h ago
Connect 4 is solved with the first player winning with perfect play. If he puts the first move in the 4th (central) file he can force a win; if he puts the first move in the 3rd or 5th file it's a draw and if he puts the first move in the 1st, 2nd, 6th or 7th file the second player can force a win.
→ More replies (4)13
u/Joinedforthis1 12h ago
It's solved but pretty hard to memorize for most people honestly.
→ More replies (7)
69
u/4squarecubed 12h ago
It is solved for an 8x8 board. However, International Draughts/checkers plays on a 10x10 board.
9
u/rwoodman2 10h ago
And Quebec checkers (Jeu de Dames) is played on a 12 x 12 board with the same rules as International: reverse jump, jump is mandatory, Kings control their whole diagonals.
→ More replies (1)19
u/Orlha 12h ago
Bigger board size makes a difference, but even russian draughts / russian checkers that use 8x8 board but otherwise mostly play by international rules are far from solved.
And american checkers is not really a serious game, so this whole post is meh.
→ More replies (1)
21
u/GeekyGamer2022 9h ago
"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of any game"
- Soren Johnson (Civilization III & IV)
44
u/TriangleTransplant 9h ago edited 1h ago
So what you're saying is that checkers could be used to teach a rogue AI that "the only winning move is not to play" and have it stand down the nuclear missile launch?
How about a nice game of chess?
Edit: some of the replies to this are really making me feel my age by not getting this reference.
→ More replies (3)9
u/LordDagwood 7h ago
If they trained an llm off reddit, it would be obsessed with forcing their opponent into an "en passant" situation.
→ More replies (6)
27
u/DeliciousPumpkinPie 9h ago
We need to come up with Checkers 2 or something, add more rules and more different pieces and oh wait that’s just chess.
→ More replies (3)15
u/SoupOfTomato 8h ago
Competitive checkers, although it barely exists now, is played by selecting a different starting board with a few moves already taken so that you aren't playing in the solved game state.
→ More replies (2)
495
u/Haidere1988 13h ago
I did this to prove a point once as to why I like chess more. Intentionally stalemated every time.
37
u/gratitudf 11h ago
Intentionally stalemating doesn't mean anything if you're not playing optimally. You can stalemate in chess by not knowing how to convert a Q+K v K endgame
5
45
u/MakeMoneyNotWar 12h ago
Go is even more complicated than chess. Deep Blue beat Kasparov back in 1997 in chess.
AIpha Go beat the top human player in 2016.
→ More replies (14)12
u/NadeWilson 12h ago
How? It takes both players knowing and doing it to stalemate properly.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (30)220
u/coolpapa2282 12h ago
I mean, chess is also almost certainly a draw with optimal play. The vast majority of humans will never be good enough to play checkers close enough to perfectly to always force a draw. Tbf, chess IS definitely deeper - I feel pretty safe in saying NO human will ever be good enough to play chess that close to perfectly.
36
u/1CEninja 12h ago
Chess is sufficiently complex that it cannot possibly be considered "solved" by humans. Tools will possibly solve it for us someday.
→ More replies (11)21
u/Sir-xer21 12h ago
There's too many permutations. It is unlikely to be "solved" in a practical sense.
→ More replies (2)15
u/Intrepid_Button587 12h ago
It's not that unlikely it'll be '"solved" in a practical sense'; it's unlikely it'll be solved in a theoretical sense. "Practical" solving is the easiest kind of solving.
→ More replies (1)37
u/swaggiep 12h ago
this but also AI still doesn’t know what optimal play is for chess. So we don’t really know. Maybe one day though Chess will be solved
→ More replies (76)37
u/Vexvertigo 12h ago
Unlikely given the number of possible moves. Unless we figure out a new way to compute data, the computer needed would be prohibitively large. For reference there are far more possible states of a chess game than there are atoms in the observable universe.
→ More replies (1)14
u/StumblingBlockson 12h ago
Yes, but the vast majority of permutations can be ruled out in advance. If you have six pieces, it's solved. We're getting closer.
And as both a chess player for over 40 years and statistician for over 25 years, I dislike my own prognosis.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (22)167
u/Jericho5589 12h ago
This is a horrible take. The thing about chess is it's actually impossible to just have optimal play. If it was possible, people would do it. Computers can't even do it. The most powerful chess engine playing against itself still only draws half the time.
136
u/Zwischenschach25 12h ago
The most powerful chess engine playing against itself still only draws half the time.
From the starting position, Stockfish (and other strong engines) will always draw against themselves. The only way to get decisive games between strong engines is to make them play from predetermined positions which are sufficiently unbalanced or better for one side.
→ More replies (10)39
u/Rob_035 12h ago
Chess engine championships use predetermined openings against each other. The first 4-10 moves are already pre-programmed.
IF chess engines started from a plain board, then yes it would likely draw repeatedly.
→ More replies (5)6
u/DarkSkyKnight 3 11h ago
The thing about chess is it's actually impossible to just have optimal play. If it was possible, people would do it.
This is wrong. Something can be possible while still being incomputable.
7
u/Reasonable_Age_2639 10h ago
> is it's actually impossible to just have optimal play.
This isn't right.
Consider all possible sequences of moves and all end game states.Now eliminate all final moves that result in the player to move losing.
Repeat with the second to final move and so on...What remains is the optimal strategy.
If there is a starting move that results in a win/lose, then the game is unfair. Otherwise Chess can always result in a draw.
The optimal strategy is constructable and it exists, therefore it's not impossible to play perfectly.What we don't know is how to construct this strategy in a reasonable amount of time. There are way too many moves in a game of chess to compute the perfect strategy.
We don't have any evidence that it's impossible to build out this strategy in a reasonable amount of time though or even encode it in a system that's easy enough for a human to memorize and follow.→ More replies (2)13
u/ManaPlox 9h ago
The thing about chess is it's actually impossible to just have optimal play
That's a wildly unsupported claim. It's entirely possible that chess is a draw with optimal play and also that humans aren't capable of optimal play.
The most powerful chess engine playing against itself still only draws half the time.
Do you have a source for this very specific number? Powerful engines playing from a standard starting position draw consistently.
44
21
u/cl0udmaster 12h ago
I might be a moron, but nowhere in the document did I actually understand the moves required to win. Can anyone help me out here?
→ More replies (1)10
u/MushroomBalls 11h ago
It depends on what the other player does. If you want to win and you're not a computer, unfortunately you just have to get good.
→ More replies (2)
54
u/PapiTrooper 12h ago
My grandfather loved to play. I just got the old board as a gift from the family.
He died when I was young and never once let me win.
“How will I teach you be better than me if I let you win?” He was so wise and funny and I miss him in a way I just can’t describe. Like a world torn away and me left without that him or that world. How could I now have lived 40 years without him and still miss him every second of every day.
How come the cruel people get to live to long and the best one get taken so young?
Wow! Sorry this post dug into my heart real deep and quick like. If you have your grandpa with you still could you hug him for me. My parents were remarried and I have since lost every single grandpa. And I loved them all. Time can be cruel.
→ More replies (4)5
u/SplitExtreme3215 11h ago
My late grandpa also liked checkers. Wise man, quietly confident, would give you the shirt off his back, trustworthy and reliable at any given time of any given day. All-around handyman who seemed to be able to fix or build nearly anything. I like your post, cheers
16
15
u/AutVincere72 9h ago
When I was in my teens I was given a chess backgammon checkers set. Cheap plastic pieces cardboard board. After a few months the box and failed and didnt hold pieces anymore and I noticed it had instructions that fell on floor. I knew all the games and had been playing backgammon since 11 chess since 9 and checkers since 4. But I looked at it and it had strategy for checkers. I never lost another game in my life. I didn't play competitively or a lot or anything. But I always won. The strategy took things I knew and understood from chess. I have lost 2000+ games of chess so I am not great. But I feel there was just playing in the moment in checkers people do not do in chess. Applying that and an emphasis in center control I dominated. A 2 page pamphlet in the 80s probably had this figured out.
13
u/mtnviewguy 11h ago
That's why Checkers players eventually get bored and start playing Chess.
→ More replies (16)
9
11
u/R-Jacksy 4h ago
This is why I prefer to play my very own Checkers 2 (patent pending), where claiming a piece requires you take it from the opponent's tightly fisted hand by any means necessary.
It doesn't actually solve checkers being a solved game, but it does solve the problem of having too many people who know how to solve it.
→ More replies (2)
23
u/starlushiexx 11h ago
Optimal play always leads to a draw" is just a fancy way of saying checkers is advanced Tic-Tac-Toe.
→ More replies (24)8
u/_kony2012 9h ago
Is your argument that any game that can conceivably be solved by computers is advanced tic-tac-toe?
→ More replies (13)
7
u/Proud-Sample5703 12h ago
my grandpa beat me at checkers every single game for ten years. nice to know a guaranteed draw was sitting right there the whole time.
2.1k
u/irobeth 11h ago edited 10h ago
Favorite anecdote from the team who solved it, who trained with Marion Franklin Tinsley, the single-greatest player ever to walk the earth:
Tinsley lost only 7 games in his 45 year draughts career, 2 of which were to Chinook, and one of which was part of a simultaneous exhibition