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Can checkers be solved?

Can checkers be solved?

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(Almost) everyone knows that chess has too many positions to be solved in the next million years. What about checkers? It's a less complex game, so can it be solved by 2020? 2040?

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What do you mean by solved?

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It means all the possible moves and positions are known to give a win, loss, or draw.

Example: if chess were solved, the position after

1.) e4...e5
2.) Nf3

will result in a win for white, assuming both sides play perfectly.

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So you mean a full combo from the start of the game. That's never gonna happen. At least I don't think it is. 😕

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Originally posted by MooTheCow
(Almost) everyone knows that chess has too many positions to be solved in the next million years. What about checkers? It's a less complex game, so can it be solved by 2020? 2040?
I'm guessing that it wouldn't take very long at all. In each position, there are almost always less than 10 moves. Assuming the worst there are 10^x positions where x is the number of moves deep. I don't know how many moves a checkers game usually lasts, but it isn't as many as chess. I think it can, and probably has been done.

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Originally posted by jimslyp69
What do you mean by solved?
It's a new record! 30 edits is quite an accomplishment, I'm proud of you!

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Originally posted by Wildfire
It's a new record! 30 edits is quite an accomplishment, I'm proud of you!
Well I was going to see if I could 'clock' the rec counter, but it got a bit boring.

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Landslide, arrow. or avalnache maneuvres seem to work well for me in checkers

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Originally posted by Nyxie
Landslide, arrow. or avalnache maneuvres seem to work well for me in checkers
You mean like getting one of your friends to shoot an arrow, cause a landslide or an avalanache to disturb the board when you're losing 😉

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Originally posted by ark13
You mean like getting one of your friends to shoot an arrow, cause a landslide or an avalanache to disturb the board when you're losing 😉
lol, move first arrow down the center, if you move second either landslide the left or avalanche the right, depending on your opponents first move.

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Originally posted by MooTheCow
(Almost) everyone knows that chess has too many positions to be solved in the next million years. What about checkers? It's a less complex game, so can it be solved by 2020? 2040?
an 8 by 8 board is already solved i think with one side winning

however

international rules where kings can move full lentth of board and board is 10 by 10 has not been solved

a dutch friend who is into checkers was explaining this to me a year or so ago

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this is probubly a load of poo and irrelevant, as i'm doing it from memory, however...

quantum computers, twice as fast as your average computer (ask a normal computer to see if a coin has two different heads or two the same and it'll read one side, turn it over and read the other. a quantum reads both at the same time. literally...) will play chess much faster and better than a normal chess computer. indeed, this has scope for a perfect chess computer. but this may be rather boring, as if both black and white are perfect black shall always resign on it's first move as it knows it's got no hope.

it make a bit of sense, but as i say i read it somewhere and i can't quite remember where or how valid it is. the bit about quantum comptuers being twice as fast is though-i read that in "new scientist" 😉

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Originally posted by genius
this is probubly a load of poo and irrelevant, as i'm doing it from memory, however...

quantum computers, twice as fast as your average computer (ask a normal computer to see if a coin has two different heads or two the same and it'll read one side, turn it over and read the other. a quantum reads both at the same time. literally...) will play chess much ...[text shortened]... he bit about quantum comptuers being twice as fast is though-i read that in "new scientist" 😉
Wrong. All of it.

As the original post said chess has so many possible positions (10^10^60 I believe was a recent estimate) that chess will never be solved.
Quantum computers instead of having two states (0 and 1) have three (0, 1 and both 0 and 1) for each bit. This gives a much greater speed but of course has yet to be invented.
Even with the increased speed the number of positions for chess is just so staggeringly large there is no way I can see it being solved.

Checkers has less positions (much less) however I do think it will be at least 15 years before solving it becomes a possibility.

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Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Wrong. All of it.

woah-the quantum computers being faster was right!

EDIT: found the artice from new scientist, http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3114

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Originally posted by genius
woah-the quantum computers being faster was right!

EDIT: found the artice from new scientist, http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3114
The Innsbruck researchers used their calcium ion to execute a quantum procedure called the Deutsch-Josza algorithm, which involves working out whether an imaginary coin is the same or different on each side. A quantum computer can check both sides at once, so can answer the problem at least twice as fast as a classical computer.


For that particular algorithm quantum computers can be twice as fast. However to solve chess or checkers I don't see why you would be using that algorithm.

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