Draughts has not been solved, can a chess programmer solve it ?

[Chessqueen]

Draughts has not been solved, can a chess programmer solve it ? Only 8x8 checkers has been solved by Chinook, but not this version of international Draughts, which could be as complicated as chess with 10x10 Draughts board. I believe that this will be the next challenge to solve Draughts. Anyway here is an IM Chess player who just learned how to play Draughts ==>

Here is Eric Rosen Fide Ratings in Chess, but he is only rated over 1700 in Draughts ==> https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2032562

[Chessqueen]

[quote=Chessqueen post_id=911909 time=1637004679 user_id=10732]
Draughts has not been solved, can a chess programmer solve it ? Only 8x8 checkers has been solved by Chinook, but not this version of international Draughts, which could be as complicated as chess with 10x10 Draughts board. I believe that this will be the next challenge to solve Draughts. Anyway here is an IM Chess player who just learned how to play Draughts ==>

Here is IM Eric Rosen Fide Ratings in Chess, but he is only rated over 1700 in Draughts ==> https://ratings.fide.com/profile/2032562
GM Ivanchuck playing Draughts ==>

[Vinvin]

You can read here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Computers

[Madeleine Birchfield]

You are better off asking at the Computer Draughts forum: https://laatste.info/bb3/viewforum.php? ... d348dd3a76

[Chessqueen]

You can read here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Computers

Computer draughts programs have been improving every year. First draughts programs were written in the mid-1970s.[6] The first computer draughts tournament took place in 1987.[7] In 1993, computer draughts program Truus ranked about 40th in the world.[8] In 2003 computer draughts program Buggy beat world number 8 Samb.[9] In 2005, the 10-time world champion and 2005 World champion, Alexei Chizhov, commented that he could not beat the computer, but he also would not lose to the computer.[10] In 2010, the 9 piece endgame database was built.[11]

Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012)
Alexander Schwarzman beat computer program Maximus on April 14, 2012. Schwarzman won game 2 in the 6-game match. The other 5 games were draws. Schwarzman was world champion in 1998, 2007, and 2009. Jan-Jaap van Horssen of the Netherlands wrote Maximus. Maximus used a six-piece endgame database. The computer was an Intel core i7-3930K at 3.2 GHz 32 gigabytes memory; it had six cores with hyperthreading. The average search depth was 24.5 ply. The average number of moves evaluated per second was 23,357,000. The average search time was 3 minutes and 52.98 seconds. https://download.cnet.com/Maximus-Draug ... 58820.html

Even it if could beat the current World Champion of Draughts Alexander Georgiev, computer has not solved Draughts yet, in order to solve it will have to play itself and draw every single game.

[Chessqueen]

You can read here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Computers

Computer draughts programs have been improving every year. First draughts programs were written in the mid-1970s.[6] The first computer draughts tournament took place in 1987.[7] In 1993, computer draughts program Truus ranked about 40th in the world.[8] In 2003 computer draughts program Buggy beat world number 8 Samb.[9] In 2005, the 10-time world champion and 2005 World champion, Alexei Chizhov, commented that he could not beat the computer, but he also would not lose to the computer.[10] In 2010, the 9 piece endgame database was built.[11]

Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012)
Alexander Schwarzman beat computer program Maximus on April 14, 2012. Schwarzman won game 2 in the 6-game match. The other 5 games were draws. Schwarzman was world champion in 1998, 2007, and 2009. Jan-Jaap van Horssen of the Netherlands wrote Maximus. Maximus used a six-piece endgame database. The computer was an Intel core i7-3930K at 3.2 GHz 32 gigabytes memory; it had six cores with hyperthreading. The average search depth was 24.5 ply. The average number of moves evaluated per second was 23,357,000. The average search time was 3 minutes and 52.98 seconds. https://download.cnet.com/Maximus-Draug ... 58820.html

Even it if could beat the current World Champion of Draughts Alexander Georgiev, computer has not solved Draughts yet, in order to solve it will have to play itself and draw every single game.

Okay I just learned some of these best Draughts Openings, after learning how to play Draughts on Youtube.com, now it is time to practice, practice and practice, and continue taking Draughts lessons on youtube.com
https://www.fmjd.org/downloads/Course/e ... 20game.pdf

Followed by playing for 2 hours per day https://lidraughts.org/

My goal is to draw Ivanchuck Someday , in Chess he is a GM , but in Draughts he is only an Master level player. In recent years, Ivanchuk has started playing checkers and has achieved a certain level of success. In the World Draughts Federation's July 2019 ranking list he was ranked number 1111 in the Worldr ==> GM Ivanchuck playing Draughts
https://www.fmjd.org/?p=rating

[Chessqueen]

You can read here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Computers

Computer draughts programs have been improving every year. First draughts programs were written in the mid-1970s.[6] The first computer draughts tournament took place in 1987.[7] In 1993, computer draughts program Truus ranked about 40th in the world.[8] In 2003 computer draughts program Buggy beat world number 8 Samb.[9] In 2005, the 10-time world champion and 2005 World champion, Alexei Chizhov, commented that he could not beat the computer, but he also would not lose to the computer.[10] In 2010, the 9 piece endgame database was built.[11]

Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012)
Alexander Schwarzman beat computer program Maximus on April 14, 2012. Schwarzman won game 2 in the 6-game match. The other 5 games were draws. Schwarzman was world champion in 1998, 2007, and 2009. Jan-Jaap van Horssen of the Netherlands wrote Maximus. Maximus used a six-piece endgame database. The computer was an Intel core i7-3930K at 3.2 GHz 32 gigabytes memory; it had six cores with hyperthreading. The average search depth was 24.5 ply. The average number of moves evaluated per second was 23,357,000. The average search time was 3 minutes and 52.98 seconds. https://download.cnet.com/Maximus-Draug ... 58820.html

Even it if could beat the current World Champion of Draughts Alexander Georgiev, computer has not solved Draughts yet, in order to solve it will have to play itself and draw every single game.

Okay I just learned some of these best Draughts Openings, after learning how to play Draughts on Youtube.com, now it is time to practice, practice and practice, and continue taking Draughts lessons on youtube.com
https://www.fmjd.org/downloads/Course/e ... 20game.pdf

Followed by playing for 2 hours per day https://lidraughts.org/

My goal is to draw Ivanchuck Someday , in Chess he is a GM , but in Draughts he is only an Master level player. In recent years, Ivanchuk has started playing checkers and has achieved a certain level of success. In the World Draughts Federation's July 2019 ranking list he was ranked number 1111 in the Worldr ==> GM Ivanchuck playing Draughts
https://www.fmjd.org/?p=rating

In case you found the wrong version of international Draughts, this is how you learn to play it ==>

[Uri Blass]

You can read here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... #Computers

Computer draughts programs have been improving every year. First draughts programs were written in the mid-1970s.[6] The first computer draughts tournament took place in 1987.[7] In 1993, computer draughts program Truus ranked about 40th in the world.[8] In 2003 computer draughts program Buggy beat world number 8 Samb.[9] In 2005, the 10-time world champion and 2005 World champion, Alexei Chizhov, commented that he could not beat the computer, but he also would not lose to the computer.[10] In 2010, the 9 piece endgame database was built.[11]

Schwarzman beat Maximus (2012)
Alexander Schwarzman beat computer program Maximus on April 14, 2012. Schwarzman won game 2 in the 6-game match. The other 5 games were draws. Schwarzman was world champion in 1998, 2007, and 2009. Jan-Jaap van Horssen of the Netherlands wrote Maximus. Maximus used a six-piece endgame database. The computer was an Intel core i7-3930K at 3.2 GHz 32 gigabytes memory; it had six cores with hyperthreading. The average search depth was 24.5 ply. The average number of moves evaluated per second was 23,357,000. The average search time was 3 minutes and 52.98 seconds. https://download.cnet.com/Maximus-Draug ... 58820.html

Even it if could beat the current World Champion of Draughts Alexander Georgiev, computer has not solved Draughts yet, in order to solve it will have to play itself and draw every single game.

Okay I just learned some of these best Draughts Openings, after learning how to play Draughts on Youtube.com, now it is time to practice, practice and practice, and continue taking Draughts lessons on youtube.com
https://www.fmjd.org/downloads/Course/e ... 20game.pdf

Followed by playing for 2 hours per day https://lidraughts.org/

My goal is to draw Ivanchuck Someday , in Chess he is a GM , but in Draughts he is only an Master level player. In recent years, Ivanchuk has started playing checkers and has achieved a certain level of success. In the World Draughts Federation's July 2019 ranking list he was ranked number 1111 in the Worldr ==> GM Ivanchuck playing Draughts
https://www.fmjd.org/?p=rating

Ivanchuck's rating in draughts is only 1983 and I wonder how it is possible that he is a master in draughts.
I know fide master need to get at least 2300 in chess.

I also believe that unlike chess there is no money in draughts and I wonder how much money the best draught player earn from playing.

[Joost Buijs]

Draughts has not been solved, can a chess programmer solve it ? Only 8x8 checkers has been solved by Chinook, but not this version of international Draughts, which could be as complicated as chess with 10x10 Draughts board. I believe that this will be the next challenge to solve Draughts.

International Draughts (10x10) is not as complicated as Chess, although the board has 100 squares only 50 are used. The pieces are also very short ranged, more like a pawn in chess, which decreases the number of possibilities enormously.

During the last Unofficial World championship for International Draughts programs just 1 of the 84 games between the 7 top programs was decisive (which could very well be due to a bug), 83 games were drawn. The ranking was mainly determined by the score against weaker programs, these programs occasionally play a bad move, and than it is more or less a question of luck.

https://www.uwccpi2021.draughtsprograms ... usion.html

I'm pretty sure that International Draughts is a theoretically drawn game, but actually proving it is not so easy.

[Chessqueen]

Draughts has not been solved, can a chess programmer solve it ? Only 8x8 checkers has been solved by Chinook, but not this version of international Draughts, which could be as complicated as chess with 10x10 Draughts board. I believe that this will be the next challenge to solve Draughts.

International Draughts (10x10) is not as complicated as Chess, although the board has 100 squares only 50 are used. The pieces are also very short ranged, more like a pawn in chess, which decreases the number of possibilities enormously.

During the last Unofficial World championship for International Draughts programs just 1 of the 84 games between the 7 top programs was decisive (which could very well be due to a bug), 83 games were drawn. The ranking was mainly determined by the score against weaker programs, these programs occasionally play a bad move, and than it is more or less a question of luck.

https://www.uwccpi2021.draughtsprograms ... usion.html

I'm pretty sure that International Draughts is a theoretically drawn game, but actually proving it is not so easy.

One can argue endlessly about this question according to the ex-world champion Dr. Max Euwe. The chessboard has 64 squares, the checkerboard only 50 in the international game of 100 squares. Players use 40 pieces in draughts (checkers) and only 32 in chess. In a full position on the checkerboard there are usually three or four reasonable possible moves, on the chessboard the number of free moves can be even greater. It is a question of the theoretical liberty of choice, as the possibilities in chess are very broad and can reach up to 20 or 30 moves, but it is the question of the practical choice that is somewhat wider in chess than in checkers.

Conversely, one must generally calculate more deeply in a draughts game, partly because capture is compulsory. However, even if nothing special is going on, the top player will see five or more moves ahead, while the chess player can limit in a quiet position to only two or three moves.
Dr. Max Euwe once had a conversation in New York with a world checkers champion Dr. Marion Tinsley. That's checkers on a checkerboard - a slightly simpler form of our international draughts game (on a 100-square board). He confided in me: "If I want a quiet game with not too much effort, I will play chess. With checkers I must already be very careful at the third or fourth move that I do not do anything wrong, I have to calculate deeply, because one mistake can have fatal consequences. However, when I play chess, I can get away with making a less good move in the opening. I can correct the disadvantage later.”
Irving Chernev, a chess grandmaster, had the opposite opinion. In 1982 he wrote a book about his first love - checkers, The Complete Encyclopedia of Checkers. In it he stated that he did not think he could accomplish the status of a grandmaster with checkers, as he’d thought he could with chess. Draughts is harder than chess
According to Gerard Welling, an international chess master, the visualization in checkers is much harder than in chess. Not only are the pieces uniform, but also in stroke exchanges the position can completely change in only a few moves. This is not the case in chess. If this experience is shared by other experts, this means that blind draughts games require more imagination than blind chess games.This is more or less what the famous chess master H. Kramer once said.
What is more difficult, checkers or chess? For grandmasters there is no difference. Both have to rely (calculate) equally deeply in these two board games. However, for beginners chess is more difficult because the number of possible moves is about 30 to 10. The layman has three times more chance to commit blunders in chess. What is the big difference? In draughts capture is compulsory, and this is not the case in chess.

There have been several chess tournaments where chess players played draughts and draughts players played chess. They showed that the draughts players were always superior. Also with triathlons draughts players have generally much better scores than chess players.

What then makes draughts different from chess? It is often said that chess is a much more complicated game. But appearances are deceptive. Checkers has simple rules, but the possibilities are, as in chess, huge. At every turn there are an average of nine possible moves, so the number of possibilities quickly adds up!

At the board games forward calculation and assessment of future possibilities play a major role and one game can be more difficult than the others, but if someone says that chess is harder than checkers or vice versa, this is obviously a subjective judgment according to Prof. Dr. Euwe.


According to Prof. Euwe from 1972 such an opinion on these board games, however, is of little relevance. The number of possibilities is in fact of an order of magnitude which makes it unlikely that we will have seen all possibilities on the board within the foreseeable, or at least the most reasonable future. The number of options for chess is 10 to the power of 120, thus a 1 with 120 zeros. Generally this number is just called to make it clear that not even a PC with its high computational speed can deplete chess by systematically examining all the possibilities.



Max Euwe, 1972


For draughts on a 100-square board the potential is 10 to the power of 60, for checkers 10 to the power of 18. For the game "go" this seems to be unknown, but it is certainly greater than for any other games. Incidentally, the computer could reach at best the beginning of a solution in checkers.


At the sound of the word draughts people unfortunately still conjure up a household, garden, or kitchen game. However, the reality is different. It seems like a simple game, but the more one looks into it, the more one finds out that the game on the 100 squares is very complex.



Wim Huisman – Piet Roozenburg, 1954


Albert Huisman, the son of the legendary blind draughts player Wim Huisman, and public servant who works in a university library, says that draughts is harder than chess:

"If you get a wrong move in chess, you can easily restore it. In checkers one cannot withdraw a forward-mounted piece."


According to Hans Vermin we often hear that chess should be more complicated and it should come by the rules, which are more extensive in chess than in draughts. Vermin then says, precisely in order to prove that draughts is a more difficult game, that in the draughts game pieces are the same and therefore appear to have similar functions. That is not so. Depending on the position on the board each piece has a particular function or more functions which can be different in another position. This is unlike chess, where one knows in advance what the function of a particular piece is and what they are worth opposing. One does not know this in draughts and that is what makes it so difficult .


Anton Dusseldorf considers draughts harder and said in 1999:

"You can force your opponent to make a specific move much more, because he is obliged to capture."


It is often thought that chess is harder than checkers. Nothing is less true. The very simplicity of the game makes draughts so difficult. A chess player must calculate various possibilities at once before he moves. Draughts players are forced to think ahead. We know from Ton Sijbrands that he thought forward 35 moves during a party. While his board was full of pieces, he came calculating to a position in which he had three stones and his opponent only two. Because it would finish in a draw, he decided to make a different move .


Is blind chess not more difficult than blind draughts? Players who have studied and played both games do not say no, because although the number of pieces in chess is higher, they have clear distinguishing marks which help memory, an element missing from draughts . To the question whether draughts is harder than chess or bridge master Jack de Haas once extensively responded:

"Checkers is at least as difficult as chess and the combinations in checkers, thanks to the compulsory capture and the capture of the majority of the pieces, are brighter and deeper than in chess ."



Jack de Haas, 1912


Mr. Matla's opinion of the difficulty factors in checkers and chess was as follows:

"Checkers is to me harder than chess, because all the pieces play the same role and the same value, allowing more possible combinations. The course of a game of chess is easier to remember, because the pieces do different work and are not equivalent. In addition, the number of squares on a chessboard is significantly lower. There are cases of good draughts players who made formidable achievements in the world of chess after a short time, including a former champion of the Netherlands who now plays on the second board for his chess club in competitive matches."


Ron Heusdens considers draughts the most difficult of all mind games . Heusdens's view is very clear:

"In fact, I do not know how to play draughts. Sometimes I see an open square and think 'I can move a piece to that place too’, and then I move it to that square.”



Rob Heusdens
Foto: Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 2 April 1999



These are the words of Ron Heusdens, eightfold mind sport triathlon champion of the Netherlands. A tournament, in which he incidentally usually scores with bridge, Heusdens considers more as a game of skill than a mind game. Chess is a lot more difficult, nevertheless his extremely intuitive way of playing sometimes brings him good results. However, according to his judgement draughts is too difficult for him. He enjoys drawing nice figures peeping into holes, nothing more than that, but if he is forced to calculate deeply and concretely, he prefers to back out .


Palmans considers draughts harder than chess .

"It has been scientifically proven. A computer can beat the best chess player, but cannot handle the draughts board of 100 squares (a chessboard has 64 squares)."


The world champion of draughts on the 100 squares Jannes van der Wal left it in the middle :

"It depends on who is your opponent. You could say that chess is easier. You just need to conquer the enemy king. With draughts you have to capture all the pieces."

Van der Wal would know, because he also played chess in those years and caused a stir in Groningen by starting in the open grandmaster group with a convincing victory against the Swedish master Rolf Akesson.



Jannes van der Wal
Foto: Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 4 Juli 2008



According to Hendrik van der Zee and Andries Bakker it is a myth that chess is harder than draughts .

"If you compare Timman with the best draughts players, then he is a mediocre chess player."

In competitions between mind sportsmen the draughts player came out as the best.



Jannes van der Wal and Ton Sijbrands are deserving chess players. Draughts players are more inventive and play less (according to the theory).


The ten-fold world champion of draughts on the 100 squares Alexei Tsjizjov says that chess is easier than draughts. Eddy Budé is on par with Tsjizjov and considers draughts more difficult than chess. A draughts player can see fifteen moves ahead. Timman is doing only four moves ahead.



Aleksej Tsjizjov World Champion Draughts, 1988
Photo: Rob Kroes, Original at Nationaal Archief with id ad6e6eea-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84



A statement of V. Cornetz:

"At the risk that I will hit on the nerve of many chess players I say that chess is more difficult to learn than draughts, but draughts is actually much harder than chess."


With regards to the computer programs for checkers, chess, and draughts on a 100 -square board we see the following development:

Checkers on the 64-square board
Jonathan Schaeffer of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alberta spent 18 years on a project using dozens of computers running continuously. In 2007 Schaeffer published his results. His program, Chinook, plays perfect checkers and cannot be beaten. If its opponent plays equally well, the game will end in a draw. So, game over! Checkers is a fair game and the game will always end in a draw if both players make optimal moves at each step of the game .

Chess
In May 1997 an IBM supercomputer known as Deep Blue beat then chess world champion Garry Kasparov, who had once bragged that he would never lose to a machine. The computer beat Kasparov by 3½-2½ in a famous six-game match after the first match in 1996 was won by Kasparov (4-2). In 2006 the chess program Deep Fritz beat world champion Vladimir Kramnik by 4-2.

Draughts on the 100-square board:
From April 9 to 14 2012 a Man-Machine battle in international draughts took place in Heerhugowaard, Holland, as a side event to the Dutch National championship in international draughts. A match with triple world champion Alexander Schwarzman, from Russia on one side of the board and Maximus , a computer draughts program from The Netherlands on the other side. Schwarzman won the match with 7-5 (one win and five draws). Still now there is no program that can beat the world champion of draughts on a 100-square board.

Whatever it may be, the debate of whether draughts or chess is more difficult will always remain.