One jump ahead
by Jonathan Schaeffer · first published 1997
9mentions
8recommended by
9HN commenters
2009–2022first – last mentioned
89% recommend11% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Insider account of how the Chinook checkers program was built and how it beat world champion Marion Tinsley, mixing technical detail with a history of competitive checkers; suited to readers interested in game AI.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Depicts the creation of the world champion checkers computer program, Chinook. This book details the mistakes and technical problems made and the lessons learned in the continuous effort to improve Chinook's performance, revealing the human factor behind the program's design"--Publisher's description.
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If you like this story I suggest you take a look at the book "One Jump Ahead" by Schaeffer for a lot more in depth view!
on “How Checkers Was Solved” ↗If you like that you might like Jonathan Schaeffer's (the creator of Chinook) book "One Jump Ahead" in which he discusses Chinook and Tinsley in great detail.
on “Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title” ↗"One Jump Ahead: Computer Perfection at Checkers" - How Dr. Schaeffer's team came up with Chinook, the program that became world champion at checkers. Later the team went on to solve checkers (like tic tac toe is a "solved"…
on “Ask HN: Favorite true story tech book?” ↗It would appear that this is some of the team at Alberta that "solved" checkers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_(draughts_player) The book http://www.amazon.com/One-Jump-Ahead-Jonathan-Schaeffer-eboo... One Jump Ahead details the checkers effort. I highly recommend this book. The "solved" aspect of resembles enumerating all possible outcomes.
on “Computers Conquer Heads-Up Limit Hold'em” ↗Having read Jonathan Schaeffer’s great book One Jump Ahead, I couldn’t help feeling that this article was a (well-written) book report which just barely mentions its primary source. Nice summary, but read the original. I haven’t read the second edition which…
on “How Checkers Was Solved” ↗…Chinook, the matches with Marion Tinsley, and checkers in general. I read it a while back and thought it was excellent, although it seems like cheap book editions are hard to find now. https://www.amazon.com/One-Jump-Ahead-Computer-Perfection-eb...
on “Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title” ↗Article is paywalled, but the book "One Jump Ahead", by Jonathan Schaeffer is a good account by one of the participants. Schaeffer is an academic, so the writing isn't stellar, but he's serviceable and the story is good. I see there's a revised edition
on “Checkers Was Solved” ↗There is a great book that the main author of Chinook wrote about this. It's called One Jump Ahead[0] and it is a great combination of technical info about the development of Chinook as well as a kind of mini-history of competitive checkers. Strongly recommend! [0] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-76576-1
on “Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title” ↗One Jump Ahead: Computer Perfection at Checkers - Jonathan Schaeffer The Number Mysteries - Marcus Du Sautoy
on “Ask HN: What is HN reading?” ↗