Just finished a fascinating book by Oliver Roeder about seven games loved by people all over the world: checkers, chess, backgammon, Go, poker, Scrabble and bridge. Artificial Intelligence is changing the play of many of these games--game competence, game analysis, human against computer play. We learn the history of these games, the obsession of the top players, and the attempts to design "perfect" computer programs that are almost impossible to beat. Also there are some fun facts about each game:
Checkers: I always thought checkers was a kids' game. I even had a checkerboard on the linoleum floor of my childhood room. Actually it's pretty complicated. When only two checkers are left on the board, there are 7,000 possible moves! Jonathan Schaeffer spent 18 years of his life designing a computer program called Chinook that would play the perfect checkers game, neglecting his family in the process.
Chess: Chess and checkers are the only two of the seven games where the players begin with an even playing field. The game was played across the Christian and Islamic world as early as the twelfth century. Roeder mentions a legend in which a visiting king inquired, "What is chess?" and the caliph he asked replied, "What is life?" Scientists at the Los Alamos Laboratory designed a computer game of chess in the mid 1950/s. World chess champion Gerry Kasparov said about the computer chess program Deep Blue, "It plays like God."
Backgammon: A game in which luck plays a part. Moves are determined by throwing dice. A group of Egyptologists discovered an ancient backgammon set dating to the fourth century A.D. in the royal cemetery at qustul. The game of backgammon can change from one turn to the next, greater than a chess game by a factor of ten. A computer program created in the 1990's trained itself to play backgammon by playing and analyzing 300,000 games against itself.
Go: Popular in Asia, Go is extremely complex. In Japan there are four Go groups. The game was developed in the seventeenth century. A game between a Grand Master, described as "the last of the true masters in the tradition of Go as a way of life and art" once played a young prodigy in a game lasting six months. He lost by five points. A year later he was dead.
Poker: The World Series of Poker in Las Vegas attracts thousands of players each year. Different levels of play require different buy-ins, ranging from $250 to $1,000,000. Like backgammon, poker has randomness since cards are drawn from a shuffled deck. Unlike backgammon, where you can see all your opponents' pieces as well as the roll of the dice, in poker, the opponents' cards are hidden and players attempt to figure out what's in their hands and bet accordingly. Roeder remarks this is similar to the real world, which often contains many things we would like to know but don't. The Computer Poker Research Group, formed in 1996, has its office at the University of Alberta in Canada. During World War II, 30 million decks of cards were distributed to troops and most were used in poker games. Presidential poker enthusiasts have included Franklin Roosevelt, Truman Eisenhower (who won enough money playing poker to buy an engagement ring for Mamie), Nixon and Obama.
Scrabble: Unlike the other games described in this book, Scrabble was invented in the 20th century during the Depression. During the first seven letter draw out of a bag containing 100 letter tiles, there are 3, 199,724 possible combinations of letters. One of the world's best Scrabble players, Nigel Richards, has memorized the entire Scrabble dictionary and if given a random word, can tell what page it is on. The dictionary contains 107 two-letter words, 1087 threes and 4218 fours. There are 192,111 words in the entire dictionary. New words are added when they become commonplace; for instance, "emoji" is now an acceptable word. Playing a seven-letter word, which gives the player a 50 point bonus, is called a bingo.
Bridge: Roeder refers to bridge as "a dying game" and remarks that the majority of avid bridge players are middle-aged or older. He also points out that, of the seven games he discusses, only bridge relies on partners and their ability to communicate with one another. There is less luck in bridge than in poker, more socialization than in chess and is less stressful than chess. Losing one hand doesn't end one's chances; the next one may turn out better. "Bridge, like the real world," says Roeder, "features alliances and discords, deduction and inference. The game requires memory and wisdom, prudence and risk, and empathy for both friend and foe." He also notes that there are 53 billion billion possible deals of a single hand!
Games are a distinctly human pastime and have been played for hundreds of years. Roeder's last chapter discusses philosophers' views of why we play games and their importance in our lives.
