Which game is more skillful: chess, backgammon or poker?
Chance Harris
: This is being posted to all three game groups.
: Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
: skillful than the other two
Define skillful for us please. I've never seen a definition
that I like. Might as well throw bridge in there too.
Christopher from Houston
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
>Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>skillful than the other two
hahahha You are probably going to get some very biased opinions. I
personally have never been very good at chess, but that is because no
one ever showed me how to play and I never had a huge interest. As
far as backgammon, people still play that??? hehhe
My answer is this: chess is a skill game. you have to master a whole
broad range of skills to win. Poker is a skill game. There are are a
huge number of ways any hand can go - almost always against a larger
number of players - but aside from that, to be a master of poker, you
have to be have the basic skills of the game, but you also have to
have a deep understanding of the human mind and condition, as you are
their 'evil psychologist,' utilizing their body language against them
for your monetary gain, as well as the master of your own emotions.
If you lose a game of chess you can set them back up and try again.
Most people only have so many houses, cars, and their wallets do not
reset at the end of ANY game - whether you are a winner - or a loser.
At the end of every game, something has changed forever - in poker. As
far as strategy? I think poker is superior in that sense as well. In
chess strategy is over the length of one game. Strategy in poker
oftentimes lasts over hundreds of hands, and yes, even many different
occasions of playing. If you were persistent enough, and you
recognized an opponent as good enough, you might need to lay traps for
him/her over several different games before you could spring it with
maximum effect.
The single chess skill that might be superior to poker that I can
think of off the top of my head is the ability to see ahead different
'branches of execution' (to put it into programming terms) in each
hand, so long as you are comparing one hand of poker versus one game
of chess. What I am saying is that in chess you have to be able to
see the positive or negative effects of a move many many moves ahead.
You have to do this in poker as well, but in poker the most you have
to see ahead to win a hand is about 5 'moves.' Like I said earlier,
though, you might make what appears to be a losing move in poker in
one hand, only to make your profit off of it days later. Comparing a
hand of poker versus a game of chess, the foresight needed is greater
in chess, but only in this one regard. Foresight over a long period of
time is greater still. I say that poker is a superior game,
skillfully-speaking.
--christopher
Wayne Cowey
since all information is available to both players, and there is no
element of chance involved. However, the demand of poker that problems
be solved with partial, sometimes deceptive information, and the much
greater psychological element demands different, perhaps greater
skills. it is really an apples and oranges comparison. I don't play
backgammon so I can't comment on it.
Wayne
PMG
Pete
Ghost
1625 USCF), and I have to say they are equal in skills, albeit in
different directions.
Chess: You need to study, and keep up with the latest in variations,
new plays, traps, etc. You dont have as much of a chance to know your
opponent, (Unless it is a chess club member), but you can get a basic
read from opening choices, move options, etc. It is more
straighforward than poker, in that you cant bluff, and there are no
"hidden" surprises (Other than a well disguised Kingside attack..LOL).
You need to be able to plan at least 2-3, and upwards of 8 moves in
advance to be excellent at chess.
Poker: You need to study, and keep up with the latest theories, etc.
You have a chance to study your opponents, see how they react in
different situations, and be able to adapt to changing conditions (New
players, limit changes in kills, dead cards, etc). There is a lot more
patience in poker, in that you may have to sit for a few hours before
starting to catch your cards, and there is skill in how and when to
bet, using position, etc.
All in all, both are equally challenging and interesting in different
ways.
JohnP (DaGhost)
Curious
What do you think of the first Karpov-Kasparov match?
Week after week, month after month fighting for full speed
trying to find wholes in their opponents armour. It involves every factor
you mention of multiple games strategi: Chess preparation, psychology,
mental health, physical health etc.
No wonder Karpov couldn't cope at the end and Kasparov was probably not
too fresh either.
Maybe Tour the France is tougher but I really doubt any poker competition
can compete ....
Curious
Lee Munzer
the cube is offered. The value of one point in relation to the ante or
blind in poker is higher in BG. Although river crds in big hands can
provide stress, comparable situations exist in BG when you have been
doubled, returned the cube and now the opponent has rolled double sixes and
you know it's coming back at eight and you have only a 26% to win the race
and, therefore, should take the cube.
I can play 30 hands of poker in the time it takes to play 3 or 4 games of
backgammon on average. This creates less stressful situations per dollar
invested, I believe.
As for chess, your greater control over the eventuality drops chess to third
irrespective of the "no-fold" nature of the rules. The clock is somewhat
stressful -- especially so for a lethargic player.
Physical stress:
BG also for physical stress on the lower back due to leaning forward to roll
the dice and move the checkers.
Lee M.
ma...@my-deja.com
I apologize in advance to those who post and read in this section (i'm
one).
It seems Chess players should laught reading your question.
The real question should be Chess vs Go vs Bridge.
I'm quite sure that Kasparov learning with snowie reaches 2000 at GG in
few weeks.
I'm quite sure that Magriel using Deep blue for the rest of his life
never reach the top 100 chess players .
I'm not trying to say that Backgammon is not a nice game.
Fascinating game is a word often used here to caracterise it and
it is true that Backgammon is the only game with up and down phases
exactly as real life is .
But that does'nt prevent me from looking at backgammon players (i'm
one) like these racers who never win in flat race and begin to win
becoming hurdler.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Roger Kirkham
I switched from chess (ELO approx 1600 = average/weak club player) to
Poker a few years ago.
Both games are skilful, but deploy different skills.
Having said that, the key difference between the games is the luck
factor in Poker - If I play the world champion at chess, I will lose
100% of the games. And that is a certainty!
If I play the world champ at Poker, I suspect I'd lose 99% of the games
- maybe more, or maybe less - but if I had a great run of cards, I
reckon I could win (once at least).
I suspect poker is more useful in real-life - its really opened my eyes
to the presence of short term luck - and how that might affect other
aspects of everyone's life... Which is a bit scary, when you think about
it!
- roGER
Heldar
inadvertently blocked my opponent from doing something that I didn't even
see that he could do. This is a very small element, but it does exist.
Also, reading your opponent is useful in chess. You can "get away" with
more against a weak player, relying on him "not seeing" what you're up to,
and making a move that is devastating against a weak opponent but would be
less than optimum against a master.
Having said that, I play all three and am the master of none, and I think
chess requires more skill than poker or backgammon. If I played a thousand
chess games against a grandmaster, I would win none. A thousand hands of
poker against a World Champion, I would win some. A thousand games of
backgammon against a World Champion, I would win quite a few.
Chesspride
>inadvertently blocked my opponent from doing something that I didn't even
>see that he could do. This is a very small element, but it does exist.
You are confusing "luck" with some type of "dualistic mental explanation" here.
Chess is an open information game...there is no random element.
What you are confusing is the imputed intentionality of the players.
Something akin to "Gee...I think when I play ...a6 it will do this.."
when...in fact...the move ...a6 does nothing of the kind.
This is not a luck element. What it represents is the failure of one of the
participants to internalize the correct rationalization for the move played.
A computer...one could argue...is free from this dualistic mumb-jumbo. Yet
nobody would argue that when computers play chess they are subject to "luck."
Take away the inner rationalizations...and give just the moves played...and you
will find that chess has no "luck" at all. Just moves that are
good...better..and best.
Again...you are confusing the element of "luck" with the mechanism for
producing the move strings. The two are separate and distinct.
The example that shows this is backgammon. One can play "perfect"
backgammon...that is to say...the best moves that have the highest chance of
success...and still lose. How? Because of the random element of the dice.
In backgammon...one can have a very good (i.e., SKILLED) move generator...and
still lose.
Chess has no such randomizer...the best moves win...all the time.
The only reason they might not win...would be the inner mechanism of one or
both of the players....the move selection algorithm.
In other words...SKILL.
Eric C. Johnson
Lee Munzer
Patti Beadles ...
> Chess requires the most skill, I believe.
>
> I'm a competent non-expert poker and backgammon player, and I could
> sit down and pretty much hold my own in these games against any player
> in the world. I wouldn't be the favorite, but depending on the
> parameters of the competition, I'd be somewhere between 25% and 45% to
> win against a top-ranked player. A world class chess player would
> slaughter a merely competent one.
Right (except that judging by your accomplishments, you've underrated your
poker skills).
Of course, the actual game situation would alter the %s. For example, if
experts Jason Lester, Roger Lowe, or Alphonse Mekalainas were to play a 200
point backgammon match (would take 25 to 35 hours of play) with a strong,
intermediate player, the expert would win 95%+ of the time. A 21 point
match would reduce his win rate to 75%, I'll guess. If you reduce the
number of games even further and remove the complex strategy involved in
cube management, the best player in the world would beat a strong
intermediate player 5 out of 9 games (without using the doubling cube).
This is not my estimate ... it came from the Paul Magriel, the best player
(at the time) in the world during a tournament. We were playing side by
side and he was losing to an obviously totally inferior opponent. When his
opponent took a men's room break, we had a discussion about the 5 of 9
probability.
Poker, of course has similar variables and time played aids the expert
player.
By the way, my previous post on this subject addressed stress -- not skills.
I was responding to the originator's second post -- on stress, but clicked
on his first post.
Lee M.
Rodrigo Andrade
skillful than chess.
And I'd also be a fool to think that chess takes more skill than Go.
--
RODRIGO
===========================================================
"All religions of a spiritual nature are inventions of man. He has
created an entire system of gods with nothing more than his carnal brain.
Just because he has an ego and cannot accept it, he has had to externalize
it into some great spiritual device he calls 'God.'"
- The Satanic Bible
Anton Szandor LaVey
PMG
not on the easy side!
Pete
helmet
skillful than the other two
Patti Beadles
I'm a competent non-expert poker and backgammon player, and I could
sit down and pretty much hold my own in these games against any player
in the world. I wouldn't be the favorite, but depending on the
parameters of the competition, I'd be somewhere between 25% and 45% to
win against a top-ranked player. A world class chess player would
slaughter a merely competent one.
-Patti
--
Patti Beadles |
pat...@netcom.com/pat...@gammon.com |
http://www.gammon.com/ | If you're not living on the edge
or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | you're taking up too much space.
gStr...@houses.com
>Slight disagreement, Wayne - there is luck in chess. I have sometimes
>inadvertently blocked my opponent from doing something that I didn't even
>see that he could do. This is a very small element, but it does exist.
We had a big thread on this some time ago. I remember that the closest
one could attribute luck to chess was someone accidentally spilling
hot coffee on your opponent, thereby throwing him off his game.
helmet
>I am an economist professionally. My gut instinct tells me that since poker is
>played for money and chess isn't, poker is bound to attract the more talented
>and skilled individuals, ultimately. Or at least, the most crafty and devious
>ones. Money is so central to our culture, and represents such a primal force
>in this world, that its power and influence cannot be underestimated. Money is
>the central focus and measuring rod of poker skill, and adds a dimension to the
>game that is missing in chess.
>I'm sure no one will ever be able to successfully answer the question as to
>which is the more skillful game, poker or chess. These are just some of my
>random thoughts after having played both games.
>Paul
Chess at the top level is played for a great deal of money.
Backgammon too is often a money game. Backgammon is the
easiest to learn , also the easiest to reach a fairly competent level.
However to become a top player in any of the three games is
very difficult and probably needs much natural ability and hard work.
Once you reach a very high standard in any of them chess is
probably the easiest to play. The chess grandmaster could beat
a weak player blindfolded, whereas the expert BG player always
needs to concentrate to maximize his %age chances. Poker
probably has the most chances for the good player to be upset during
a game due to the higher number of opponents. So his win % likely
to be much lower
helmet
jiffy
PMG wrote:
>
> A poker NG? Amazing!
>
> Pete
>
> helmet wrote:
>
JBDes1
>Backgammon too is often a money game. Backgammon is the
>easiest to learn , also the easiest to reach a fairly competent level.
> However to become a top player in any of the three games is
>very difficult and probably needs much natural ability and hard work.
> Once you reach a very high standard in any of them chess is
>probably the easiest to play. The chess grandmaster could beat
>a weak player blindfolded, whereas the expert BG player always
>needs to concentrate to maximize his %age chances. Poker
>probably has the most chances for the good player to be upset during
>a game due to the higher number of opponents. So his win % likely
>to be much lower
> helmet
That's one of the reasons I believe people are not learning chess up to their
maximum capabilities, we haven't found an effective way to learn it (outside of
Russia).
Why do you think expert backgammon players have to concentrate with competant
players? Because Backgammon can be learned in a much more structured way.
If we could find similar learning techniques for chess, I think there would be
many more successes. Blindfolded chessplayers might have to actually
concentrate. :)
helmet
>> A poker NG? Amazing!
>>
>> Pete
>>
and FIBS(backgammon)
goto
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/mummert/public/www/ircbot.html
here you can download the software and play poker for rating
points rather than money.
helmet
Gary Philips
Poker it is
as many as ten. Based on that fact alone Poker has to require more
skill, adeptness, etc.
Gary Philips
jiffy wrote:
> Ummmmmm...I'll have fish for dinner tonite i guess :)
>
> PMG wrote:
> >
> > A poker NG? Amazing!
> >
> > Pete
> >
VSG
helmet <acu...@es.co.nz> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
acummin.18...@es.co.nz...
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
> Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> skillful than the other two
From the replies so far it is clear that we have a circular argument here and
that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most skill.
I DO get the impression that backgammon is underrated as a game of skill by most
non-backgammon players. One look at some of the postings in the backgammon
newsgroup would change your mind as to what is in involved :) Especially after a
discussion on equity in which I still believe that without a degree in advanced
mathematics it will never become clear.
Odds / probabilities take an important roll in backgammon, e.g. what are the
chances of me re-entering form the bar with 1 point open etc. I won't even
attempt to tell you the complicated logic involving the doubling cube. It is NOT
a case of "Oh look I'm ahead.. time to double" :)
There can be as much as 20 possible options or more on each move. Take a look at
the position below. More options than you can shake a stick at. Some good, some
terrible. It takes a lot of experience and knowledge to know where to move here.
For non-backgammon players X is moving clockwise and has rolled a 4 and a 2. An
example move is 4 from the 8 point (hitting) plus 2 from the 6 point (covering)
which in backgammon notation would read 8/4* 6/4. there are a bunch of other
choices though and only 1 will give you the best chance of winning the game.
pip count relates to the amount of points (pip) you are away from your goal
which is off the board.
5 point match (level 7)
Score X(Webby)-O(Jelly): 0-1
Cube centered
X to play (4-2)
+24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
| X O | | X O O X |
| O | | O X |
| O | | O X |
| O | | X |
| O | | |
| |BAR| |
| X | | |
| X | | O |
| X | | X O |
| X | | X O |
| O O X | | X X O |
+-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
Pipcount X: 158 O: 162 X-O: 0-1
CubeValue: 1
Pleaseeee. Chess players, Poker players, Go players, tiddlywinks players
whatever. DON'T regard backgammon as a "Chuck the dice and whoever rolls the
most doubles wins the game" game. Believe it or not, sometimes high doubles are
bad, but now we are getting into heavy timing issues ;)
I happen to agree that Chess is the most skilful game. But Backgammon isn't the
gulf behind that some posters have implied.
BTW, In my opinion Backgammon is the most fascinating of the lot :)
Completely bias, as I can't play chess properly, Bridge at all, I'd lose my
house on poker, what is Go? :)
Regards
Alan Webb
Ps. I'll post what is considered to be the best move in a few days, although RGB
regulars will recognise it from posts gone by.
Webby's Backgammon Site
http://marina.fortunecity.com/frog/303/BGHome.htm
(quiz with a bunch of positions like the one above)
Gilbert Palmer
>From the replies so far it is clear that we have a circular
argument here and
>that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most
skill.
(snip)
>I happen to agree that Chess is the most skilful game. But
Backgammon >isn't the gulf behind that some posters have
implied.
I do not know whether this question can indeed be answered
however as I am not UP in backgammon - could someone post here
and tell we ignorant chess players what the state of affairs is
with backgammon and computers?
It might seem like a daft question to those in the know - but
can the top backgammon players in a long match beat the best
commercially available backgammon programmes? In chess we have
now reached the stage where a World Champion (Kasparov) got
thrashed by a mainframe computer - but that was a couple of
years ago - now even 'normal' PC based programmes can (and do!)
beat really top first class chess Grandmasters. We do not care
much however as the fascination of the game is in the playing
not in whether it could be solved - and even computers are not
even close to being able to solve chess.
>BTW, In my opinion Backgammon is the most fascinating of the
lot :)
I think it is a great game - truly - I believe it is not as
popular world-wide as it was in the seventies (when I learned)
but is it on the up and up again?
>Completely bias, as I can't play chess properly, Bridge at
all, I'd lose my
>house on poker, what is Go? :)
Go is even more difficult than chess!
It is a board game played on a 19x19 lattice - it has only one
piece - called a stone and it never moves, one player plays
white with white stones and the other black with black stones.
The game starts with the board being empty and is played by
each player placing a stone in turn on any vacate point (on the
intersection of the lines - not on the square as in chess) the
object of the game is to capture as much territory of the board
as possible by linking your own stones - if you manage to
surround (completely) enemy stones they are removed from the
board - sometimes you do not who is surrounding who and it can
be very tactical as the board is so large, there are many
complicated situations where even large clumps of enemy stones
cannot be surrounded as they contain blank points. As you will
no doubt have gathered by now I can't play GO but I have tried
in the past and found it extremely (too?) complicated.
One of our Chess World Champions (a guy called Lasker) was keen
on lots of board games including GO and thought himself quite a
player - he was offered a game by a Japanese (might have been
Chinese) GO master - Lasker was offered what he considered high
odds (he was allowed to place many stones on the board without
reply - the master thought this would make the 'contest'
fairer - Lasker thought that he was being given too big an
advantage and was extremely confident) result: Lasker was
thrashed...
While I am not aware of Lasker being involved with backgammon -
he did speak very highly of the challenge of the game of
dominoes - this game is (I believe) dominated by West Indian
players - no pun intended.
Gilbert Palmer
A Chess fan and a bad but keen backgammon player.
Ahmet Ayvaz
Darren Jones
>Chess
>It is more
>straighforward than poker, in that you cant bluff, and there are no
>"hidden" surprises
Mmm?
Not sure about that.
http://www.dazj.demon.co.uk/scumbag.html
(The relevant ones are the 'Wolf in sheeps clothing', the 'confidence
trick' and the 'Mysterious move').
--
Darren Jones
Lee Munzer
Gary Philips <lvd...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:375629B7...@earthlink.net...
> With Chess and Backgammon you have to contend with one opponent. With
> Poker it is
> as many as ten. Based on that fact alone Poker has to require more
> skill, adeptness, etc.
>
> Gary Philips
>
comparable to contending with a much better poker player. River cards and
big dogs (double sixes in BG) have a way of reversing the outcome in those
games as opposed to chess where luck is minimal at best (maybe non-existant,
but I'll let chess players make that determination).
Adeptness made me think of adaptation -- point which plays to poker over
backgammon -- there is counterplay in both, however, you're right about the
# of players raising the skill requiremnt in poker vs. BG.
Lee M.
VSG
<ma...@my-deja.com> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: 7j4cve$vrd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Sorry that is complete and utter BS. Kasparov can reach 2000 in a few weeks with
just Snowie having started from fresh??!!! Give me a break. It is the concepts
and exceptions from general rules as well as checker play that must be learnt as
well as cube handling.. timing.. .. oh I could go on and on.. that supposition
is truly laughable.
Alan Webb
Unknown
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
>Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>skillful than the other two
I think that one thing people are forgetting is that
each game measures success in a different way. While
it might be possible to win at bacgammon and poker
against world class competition in a tournament. That
is not the real measure of skill in the game. In truth,
it would probably be best to measure success over an
extended period for all games. Thus it would be as
improbable to defeat a world class chess player as it
would be to defeat a world class poker or backgammon
player.
That being said, others have noted that the games are
fundamentally different. If we assume that luck has
nothing to do with skill then the games exist at different
locations in a two dimensional space where the dimensions
are
* size of known game state
* size of hidden game state
Chess: large known game state, small hidden state
Backgammon: smaller known game state, small hidden state
Poker: smaller known game state, large hidden state
The real question should be: how does skill relate to games
with hidden state vs. known state? Given this question it
is also reasonalbe to include games like bridge, or even
one of my favorites, Clue!
In the end I would have to say that the size of the game
state, hidden or known, is the driving factor in how much
skill is needed to master a game.
Given this, I would concede that chess is the most difficult,
poker comes next, bridge follows, then backgammon, then clue.
But that's just my opinion.
- Andrew
PMG
VSG wrote:
> helmet <acu...@es.co.nz> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
> acummin.18...@es.co.nz...
> > This is being posted to all three game groups.
> > Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> > skillful than the other two
>
> From the replies so far it is clear that we have a circular argument here and
> that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most skill.
<---every thing else clipped------->
I'm sure that is what Helmet intended, it provides some interesting discussion
between groups, I'm sure there's no need to put your finger on a best game, that's
too subjective. Many of us Chess players tend to be so addicted to the game that
that's ALL there is, so here's two other games that require considerable skill.
Pete
VSG
Ahmet Ayvaz <ay...@nospamrlinternational.com> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
vmv53.657$m4.3075@nntp1...
> YAHTZEE!!!!
>
>
Not quite... 4 of a kind which I'll put on 6s i think... Important to get that
bonus you know... waffle waffle
Tom Ewall
original question is, which game is more skillful, not which game has the
least amount of luck involved. I agree that this is an apples/oranges type
of question, though, since the amounts of information available differs so
much. Also agree that chess does involve an element of luck, especially in
complicated situations, and very much so with players of less than master
strength, since they don't really know what's going on.
Also, you can't equate hands to games. A game would be more akin to a
heads up match, and in that case your chances of winning at poker (assuming
similar levels of skill) would be as poor in either case.
Heldar <Da...@heldar.com> wrote in article
<7j49h3$q...@sjx-ixn1.ix.netcom.com>...
> Slight disagreement, Wayne - there is luck in chess. I have sometimes
> inadvertently blocked my opponent from doing something that I didn't even
> see that he could do. This is a very small element, but it does exist.
>
Chance Harris
: VSG wrote in message <7j5hvt$4ge$1...@news08.btx.dtag.de>...
: >From the replies so far it is clear that we have a circular
: argument here and
: >that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most
: skill.
: (snip)
: >I happen to agree that Chess is the most skilful game. But
: Backgammon >isn't the gulf behind that some posters have
: implied.
: I do not know whether this question can indeed be answered
: however as I am not UP in backgammon - could someone post here
: and tell we ignorant chess players what the state of affairs is
: with backgammon and computers?
: It might seem like a daft question to those in the know - but
: can the top backgammon players in a long match beat the best
: commercially available backgammon programmes?
I'm not completely in the know, but a couple of years ago I did
some reading on this. IIRC, the best backgammon computer games
were not quite there, but pretty damn close to the top human
players. It was pretty interesting too --- the best backgammon
games were neural nets that played each other a lot, the only
human input they had was a hand crafted feature set of board
conditions that experts said they relied on. The programmers
didn't do anything to tell the computer _how_ to use these features,
they just made the features of importance very explicit, so that
the program didn't have to play itself for hundreds of years
to notice that position A was qualitatively ver different from
position B.
The resultant program was in some respects exactly opposite of the
best chess programs. When in came to very positional, fuzzy decisions
I think I remember reading about a situtation where the computer
made an unorthodox (at the time) move that confused the experts.
After a lot of anaylsis the experts concluded that the move was actually
the best one, the computer program discovered someting new! However,
in the "end game" when its just a matter of getting your pieces put up
as fast as possible, it would occasionally make a mistake that even a
medium-competence player could see (correctly) as a mistake. So the best
backgammon game is positionally very strong but tactically weak. (Do a
web search for "backgammon" and "TD" or "TD Lambda")
Jaeger T. Cat
Ahmet Ayvaz <ay...@nospamrlinternational.com> wrote:
>YAHTZEE!!!!
>
>
I prefer Bong-Yahtzee.
dott...@ualberta.cax
>
>For non-backgammon players X is moving clockwise and has rolled a 4 and a 2. An
>example move is 4 from the 8 point (hitting) plus 2 from the 6 point (covering)
>which in backgammon notation would read 8/4* 6/4. there are a bunch of other
>choices though and only 1 will give you the best chance of winning the game.
>pip count relates to the amount of points (pip) you are away from your goal
>which is off the board.
This is why backgammon is not the most skillful game. Even tho whatever move you
suggest may be the best CHANCE to win a game, it does not guarantee you will win.
In fact, even after your best move (whatever it is), you may still lose horribly.
Same in poker; you can play perfectly and lose horribly anyways. That will never
happen in chess.
Having said that, I think poker, then backgammon, then chess takes the most skill
to play (and thats not bias, since chess is the only one of the three I play). How
can I reconcile these two seemingly contradictory positions?
Simple: the game chess itself is a pure skill game. No one and nothing to blame for
your loss except yourself. All it relies on is an understanding of the pieces and
their interrelations. One skill only required (unless you want to get into
psychology, which is not a function of the GAME itself).
Poker and backgammon require a knowledge of your cards/pieces and how they
interrelate. They also require an ability to calculate odds and luck factors. Two
skills required.
So: as games go, chess is the most skillful, but as players go, poker+backgammon
players require more skill. I hope that makes sense. (I cant differentiate enough
between poker+backgammon, since I play neither)
--
*********************************************************************
David Ottosen
dott...@ualberta.ca
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dottosen
*********************************************************************
Chesspride
>can the top backgammon players in a long match beat the best
>commercially available backgammon programmes
In a long match...NO.
In a short match...YES.
>In chess we have
>now reached the stage where a World Champion (Kasparov) got
>thrashed by a mainframe computer - but that was a couple of
1. He's not the world champion
2. He was not in any way "thrashed" despite what some uneducated persons in the
newspaper business like to write.
The human player won game 1.
The human player played passively in game 2...was probably lost...but
then...just at the moment of salvation...mistakenly resigned when a draw was at
hand.
The human player had advantages in the next three games...but these were drawn.
The human player...either opted for a poor variation in game 6...because he
thought the computer would overestimate the value of the piece
sacrifice....OR....he made a finger mistake.
Either way...the machine's PLAY was not impressive to ANY knowledgeable chess
observers...
...AND the score of the match...3.5 to 2.5 ...was not exactly a thrashing.
Unless you think that winning a basketball game in the final 10 seconds ...or a
football game with a last-minute field goal...or a hockey game with a
last-second power play goal...is "thrashing."
Eric C. Johnson
Tad Perry
>
>
>VSG wrote:
>
>> helmet <acu...@es.co.nz> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
>> acummin.18...@es.co.nz...
>> > This is being posted to all three game groups.
>> > Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>> > skillful than the other two
>>
>> that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most skill.
>
>
>I'm sure that is what Helmet intended, it provides some interesting discussion
>between groups, I'm sure there's no need to put your finger on a best game, that's
>too subjective. Many of us Chess players tend to be so addicted to the game that
>that's ALL there is, so here's two other games that require considerable skill.
Yes, exactly.
And remember, we are also so addicted to our games (me being poker)
that that's ALL there is. There should be people in each NG that
know a LOT about their respective game. A few that have some crossover
knowledge.
This wasn't intended as a "which is better" type of discussion, but
more of a "there are similarities and differences here, let's talk
about it" type discussion.
tvp
Tad Perry
>
> Complexity Numbers
>
> Go 40
> Chess 14
> Scrabble 10
> Poker 10
> Backgammon 8
> Draughts 8
> Blackjack 2
> Craps 0.001
> Lotteries 0.0000001
> Roulette 0
>
>The good feature of this table is that it resolves at one stroke all the
>muddled thinking about luck, skill, games of skill and games of chance. Any
>game with no skill falls automatically to zero. For all other games, the
>relevant issue is not luck versus skill but rather the interplay of skill,
>chance and complexity.
>
Cool! This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my article. Had
I read this first maybe I could have organized my thoughts better.
tvp
Tad Perry
(poker) and only serviceable at the others.
"Skillfull" can be defined different ways, and depending on the way
you do it you might get a different answer.
If it is to mean "skill has the most impact on outcomes" then I don't
think anyone would disagree that the game requiring the most skill is
chess. It's the hardest game for the weaker opponent to overcome the
stronger opponent. There is no element of random luck to be overcome.
By this way of thinking I figure backgammon is second and poker is
third in regard.
On the other hand, a decent argument could be made that poker requires
the most skill to be a winner because the luck factor is so huge that
you need A LOT of skill to be successful in the long run. Some skill?
No, not good enough. You need A LOT before you're even really
competing for the money.
By this way of thinking backgammon would be second and chess would be
third.
Of course, here is another interesting thing. In backgammon the luck
factor of the dice itself is not so big but when you include the
presence of the cube, it becomes huge. So you can get a miracle roll
(or your opponent can) and BAM! here's the cube, buddy, want it?
I always equate this to raising in poker. It's a very similar concept.
The difference in backgammon is that your position is a completely
known quantity if you're an expert player. The only unknown is whether
or not things are going to stay as they are, and part of that is
entirely dependent on chance (the roll). So it's not only like raising
the best hand in poker, it's like knowing for a fact you have the
current best hand and raising. It's akin to poker with all the cards
up.
In poker this is not the case. You don't always know for sure. The
particular skill most called for as you advance levels is a
development of the ability to figure the unknowns and intuit whether
or not you DO have the best position or not.
In the case of chess, position is theoretically a completely
"knowable" quantity but the information is hidden in the fact that the
game is so complex. In other words, there could be a key piece of
information that you need that is like a needle in the haystack to
find. Finding this and using this is NOT luck dependent. Both the
ferreting it out and the proper application of what you find are skill
related. And I think that's why you see skill dominate that game.
But back to poker, part of what you need to develop is the ability to
"read minds". After a point that's what it starts to boil down to. In
poker you can find situations where your hand is NOT best but you just
"know" (or strongly suspect) that you can get someone to make a
decision counter to what the actual positions dictate. In other words,
you can force the best hand out of the pot in some cases and turn the
second best actual position into the first best effective position.
[Sorry that that is considered "bad" writing--tvp]
I think what you have here in this discussion is the idea that
backgammon and chess definitely require a high concentration of skill
but mostly in just one area: evaluation of the strategic situation.
So the more complex the situation the more skill required. Chess
clearly beats out backgammon in that regard.
Since the strategic situations in chess and backgammon to a lesser
extent can be so complex to evaluate compared to poker, you need a LOT
of skill in this regard.
In poker the situations themselves do not seem so complex until you
realize that your opponent has the ability to make it look the
opposite of reality (bluffing) and so you have to counter that by
determining for yourself what the actual position really is before you
even get to determining what to do about it.
There is one more thing to be addressed however. And that's the fact
that in poker you are generally playing against a field of players and
in backgammon and chess you play heads up. If we look at heads up
poker we find that the lesser opponent has almost no chance and can be
quickly destroyed by the better player. Poker is not commonly played
this way but it is much more common occurence than a non-poker player
realizes.
In heads up poker play skill begins to completely dominate the
outcome. If we go back to asking in which game does skill dominate and
include this fact about heads up play then chess probably still ranks
first but poker shoots into second and backgammon is last.
So there's two ways of looking at the skill component. How much does
it correlate to success and how much of it is required to get anywhere
in the game. And those are two different things.
This wasn't intended so much as an answer to the question but as an
overview of the concepts that have to go into looking at it.
tvp
Tad Perry
Is that where you have to take a bong hit every time you get a Yahtzee?
Sorry I don't understand but have my suspicions. ;-)
tvp
Jaeger T. Cat
Well, in the classic version, it was a bong hit for
- getting the bonus on top
- any score on the bottom >= 26 (except small straight)
- any yahtzee
- winning
we got bored, and added
- scoring your age in 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, chance
- any score on the bottom <= 9
you could also play for whippets, or lines, or all 3.
PMG
Tad Perry wrote:
> In article <7j6hh8$edt$1...@pluto.njcc.com> jae...@pluto.njcc.com (Jaeger T. Cat) writes:
> >In article <vmv53.657$m4.3075@nntp1>,
> >Ahmet Ayvaz <ay...@nospamrlinternational.com> wrote:
> >>YAHTZEE!!!!
> >>
> >>
> >
> >I prefer Bong-Yahtzee.
>
> Is that where you have to take a bong hit every time you get a Yahtzee?
>
> Sorry I don't understand but have my suspicions. ;-)
>
> tvp
You gotta admit, that would make it more challenging!
Pete
Tad Perry
>In article <7j6srd$p4c$1...@nntp3.u.washington.edu>,
>>In article <7j6hh8$edt$1...@pluto.njcc.com> jae...@pluto.njcc.com (Jaeger T. Cat) writes:
>>>In article <vmv53.657$m4.3075@nntp1>,
>>>Ahmet Ayvaz <ay...@nospamrlinternational.com> wrote:
>>>>YAHTZEE!!!!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>I prefer Bong-Yahtzee.
>>
>>Is that where you have to take a bong hit every time you get a Yahtzee?
>>
>>Sorry I don't understand but have my suspicions. ;-)
>>
>>tvp
>
> - getting the bonus on top
> - any score on the bottom >= 26 (except small straight)
> - any yahtzee
> - winning
>
>we got bored, and added
> - scoring your age in 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, chance
> - any score on the bottom <= 9
>
>you could also play for whippets, or lines, or all 3.
Thanks.
Finally there's some repayment for my post on how to play strip poker! ;-)
tvp
Tad Perry
>
>
>Tad Perry wrote:
>
>> In article <7j6hh8$edt$1...@pluto.njcc.com> jae...@pluto.njcc.com (Jaeger T. Cat) writes:
>> >In article <vmv53.657$m4.3075@nntp1>,
>> >Ahmet Ayvaz <ay...@nospamrlinternational.com> wrote:
>> >>YAHTZEE!!!!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >I prefer Bong-Yahtzee.
>>
>> Is that where you have to take a bong hit every time you get a Yahtzee?
>>
>> Sorry I don't understand but have my suspicions. ;-)
>>
>> tvp
>
When the game has been reduced to reading the dice wrong,
and not caring or even noticing, then you know the game has
served it's ultimate purpose.
tvp
helmet
>I'm sure that is what Helmet intended, it provides some interesting discussion
>between groups, I'm sure there's no need to put your finger on a best game, that's
>too subjective. Many of us Chess players tend to be so addicted to the game that
>that's ALL there is, so here's two other games that require considerable skill.
>Pete
Yep i thought it would be a good idea to have a discussion
across three groups. I hoped the result maybe that members of
one group would gain an understanding and interest of what was
happening in the other games/groups
helmet
helmet
>I do not know whether this question can indeed be answered
>however as I am not UP in backgammon - could someone post here
>and tell we ignorant chess players what the state of affairs is
>with backgammon and computers?
pun intended.
>Gilbert Palmer
>A Chess fan and a bad but keen backgammon player.
The top backgammon programs have not yet reached
the point where they are the best players in the world, however
they are very close. The situation is similar to chess in that
the backgammon progs can beat 99% of players but havnt
been able to solve the game. The good backgammon programs
are neural nets such as snowie and jellyfish. Jellyfish
can be downloaded free, perhaps some of the chess/poker players
would like to give it a try. It can be downloaded at
It is a very advanced program, at least the equivelent of fritz
in chess probably better.
helmet
helmet
of the most skillful game better than any other and is probably as near to a
scientific answer as we will have. I have moved the article from the stress to
the skill thread
helmet
Bill Robertie produced an interesting piece on this topic some years ago in
Inside Backgammon. It was so good that I sought Bill's permission to
reproduce the bulk of the article for my newspaper column as it was a
question often asked by readers. The article is reproduced below and should
provide food for thought.
How much of backgammon is luck and how much is skill? If I said it was 60%
skill and 40% luck what would I mean? If you said it was 50% skill and 50%
luck how could we prove who was right and who was wrong? The answer is we
couldn't. Let's look at the problem from a different perspective and compare
the skill and chance factors involved in different games.
We shall start with chess where ratings rank from a high of 2800 to a
theoretical low of zero. Chess ratings are also designed so that a 200 point
rating difference between two players anywhere on the scale means that the
higher-rated player has a 70-75% chance of defeating the lower-rated player
(discounting draws which are possible in chess but not in most of the other
games we will consider).
Now consider the following experiment:
1. Take the best player in the world (Gary Kasparov). Call him player 1
2. Find someone that the best player beats 70-75% of the time. Call him
player 2.
3. Call the difference between players 1 and 2 one skill differential.
4. Find someone that player 2 can beat 70-75% of the time. The difference
between player 2 and player 3 is another skill differential.
5. Continue this process until you have taken the chain down to an absolute
beginner.
6. Count the number of skill differentials involved. This is the complexity
number of the game.
We can now apply this process to any game, although we may have to give some
thought as to what constitutes a meaningful contest. In chess, a single
tournament game of four to five hours seems reasonable. In backgammon it
would probably be a 25-point match, in scrabble perhaps a best of five
series, and so on.
Here is a rough chart of how various games rank on the complexity number
scale:
Complexity Numbers
Go 40
Chess 14
Scrabble 10
Poker 10
Backgammon 8
Draughts 8
Blackjack 2
Craps 0.001
Lotteries 0.0000001
Roulette 0
The good feature of this table is that it resolves at one stroke all the
muddled thinking about luck, skill, games of skill and games of chance. Any
game with no skill falls automatically to zero. For all other games, the
relevant issue is not luck versus skill but rather the interplay of skill,
chance and complexity.
I am indebted to Bill Robertie, two time world backgammon champion for the
research for this article. I do not have a figure for bridge - perhaps a
reader may care to submit an opinion?
Patti Beadles
question. The games require different skills at different levels.
Chess requires you to have a good memory and to be able to think many
moves forward. It's much more analytical than either poker or
backgammon. [ disclaimer: I suck at chess. ]
Backgammon is mostly pattern recognition and strategy, and requires
you to be able to assimilate the whims of dice into your master plan,
while constantly adjusting the plan to current conditions. You don't
need to be able to do precise, detailed analysis in most situations,
although it is sometimes important.
Poker is mostly a game of people. You need to keep track of your
opponents at all times, knowing not just their skills, weakenesses,
and tells, but watching for minute-to-minute variations in their
moods. In most poker games, actual card skills are secondary.
Because there's a strong element of short-term luck, poker and
backgammon both require you to be able to keep a level head in the face
of sudden adversity. When your opponent just hit a 17:1 shot or caught
a two-outer to win a large pot, you have to be able to put it behind
you and continue playing your best game. And because they're both
gambling games, "hustling" skills can also be important, e.g. keeping
your opponents happy and entertained, and willing to give away their
money.
For the most part, both backgammon and chess usually have a
theoretically correct move in any given position, and rarely would you
adjust your play based on your opponent. (Chess players, correct me
if I'm wrong.) Poker, on the other hand, demands that you do this at
every turn.
I can easily imagine poker players arguing that chess requires more
skill because there's so much memory and strategy involved, while chess
players argued that poker was more difficult because of the people
skills and uncertainty. And somebody could probably argue that
backgammon was more difficult than either, although for the life of me
I couldn't imagine why. :-)
-Patti
--
Patti Beadles |
pat...@netcom.com/pat...@gammon.com | Failure is not an option.
http://www.gammon.com/ | It comes bundled with
or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | your Microsoft product.
Gilbert Palmer
Chesspride wrote in message
<19990603170932...@ng-cb1.aol.com>...
>>In chess we have
>>now reached the stage where a World Champion (Kasparov) got
>>thrashed by a mainframe computer - but that was a couple of
>
>1. He's not the world champion
If you want to get pedantic about it he was a World Champion.
>2. He was not in any way "thrashed" despite what some
uneducated persons in the
>newspaper business like to write.
The computer thrashed him in game six. The computer won the
match - he was thrashed, by that I mean he was beaten
convincingly and psychologically.
>The human player won game 1.
And a beautiful game it was too.
>The human player played passively in game 2...was probably
lost...but
>then...just at the moment of salvation...mistakenly resigned
when a draw >was at hand.
He was mentally beaten, yes it was subsequently shown to be a
draw - but we go by results.
>The human player had advantages in the next three games...but
these were drawn.
"Moral victories do not count" - Tartakower. Wins count -
Palmer. However, did he (the human) not have to bail out into
a draw in one of the games? I have a book of the match and
while I cannot be bothered going and picking it up I do not
think he had any serious advantage in 'the next three games'...
>The human player...either opted for a poor variation in game
6...because he
>thought the computer would overestimate the value of the piece
>sacrifice....OR....he made a finger mistake.
>
>Either way...the machine's PLAY was not impressive to ANY
knowledgeable chess observers...
I frankly do not know how you could write such - nonsense - the
computer produced some great chess. How many moves
exactly did it make in game six? Even if it was a known error
(and it was) Kasparov's play in game six led to a loss, it was
a six game match and the computer although it lost one game did
indeed win the match. I was not happy about it but I am not
going to change history or claim that it was not impressive -
it was for goodnes sake.
>...AND the score of the match...3.5 to 2.5 ...was not exactly
a thrashing.
>
>Unless you think that winning a basketball game in the final
10 seconds ...or a
>football game with a last-minute field goal...or a hockey game
with a
>last-second power play goal...is "thrashing."
I think you are losing the plot here, over six games not over
the last second.
Gilbert Palmer
A chess fan
Gavin Anderson
When you say hidden game state, do you mean hidden from one player but known
by the other ie, the hands I am holding in poker, or the strategy I am
planning in chess), or do you simply mean 'unknown' (ie future dice rolls in
backgammon)?
I assume you mean the former - in which case I would agree that poker has
the largest hidden state, with backgammon the smallest. In backgammon every
dice roll injects some randomness into the game, which means that you are
having to constantly re-evaluate your strategy each turn. That means there
isn't much hidden state in terms of the strategy you're employing against
your opponent.
An interesting thing about a small hidden state is that it implies it is
possible - or at least MORE possible - to play against yourself. I think
backgammon is the only game of the 3 that you could fairly play against
yourself, and play both sides well. Not sure what that means in terms of
skill...
Gavin Anderson
Sapporo, Japan.
> Chess: large known game state, small hidden state
> Backgammon: smaller known game state, small hidden state
> Poker: smaller known game state, large hidden state
Why do you have backgammon as having a smaller known game state? (I'm
assuming here that by hidden you mean hidden from one player, but known by
the other - therefore future 'unknown' dice rolls don't count as hidden')
gus
>
>
>VSG wrote:
>
>> helmet <acu...@es.co.nz> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag:
>> acummin.18...@es.co.nz...
>> > This is being posted to all three game groups.
>> > Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>> > skillful than the other two
>>
>> From the replies so far it is clear that we have a circular argument here and
>> that there is no way you can quantify which game has the most skill.
>
><---every thing else clipped------->
>
>I'm sure that is what Helmet intended, it provides some interesting discussion
>between groups, I'm sure there's no need to put your finger on a best game, that's
>too subjective. Many of us Chess players tend to be so addicted to the game that
>that's ALL there is, so here's two other games that require considerable skill.
>
>Pete
Completly Agree !!!
I dont know how to play any board game except checkers !.. and chess
ofcourse !
Once you play chess !!! You can´t stop...
Chess is fascinating in all aspects......
I usually play 2 hours per day ! all my friends and famaly aske me
what is so interesting on chesS ?? they just dont understand !!....
WHill
acu...@es.co.nz (helmet) wrote:
>Subject: Which game is more skillful: chess, backgammon or poker?
>From: helmet
>Organization: The Internet Group (Christchurch)
>Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 07:30:48 +1200
>Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc,rec.games.backgammon,rec.gambling.poker
>
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
>Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>skillful than the other two
As a player of Chess and then Backgammon, the answer to this is clear.
Chess is by far the more skillful. Playing white in chess if you do not
make a mistake, the best your opponent can do is draw. And one mistake
normally decides the game, at the highest levels at least. So, how about
poker and backgammon, well for me poker is purely a money game, there are
of course many elements of skill to it but in an individual hand if you are
dealt bad cards what else can you do but fold or try to bluff.
However, Backgammon is by far the most exciting, with or without money
being involved. It has all the elements of the other two with a few special
twists of it's own. You can be nearly down and out and come back to win.
You can play a bad move and it can turn into a good one! In the middle
game, very few positions ever repeat, leading to more improvisational moves
than chess. In most situations there isn't just one right move, it's more a
matter of style. Oh, and played at lightning speed and skill it's a
wonderful to watch!!
William Hill, illium on FIBS, see you there:-)
Gavin W. K. Peters
more often, the distinction in question is called
"perfect information" vs. "imperfect information" games.
(chess and backgammon have perfect information, poker has imperfect
information).
Perhaps if you're doing a literature search, these terms will help.
- Gavin
JBDes1
>moves forward. It's much more analytical than either poker or
>backgammon. [ disclaimer: I suck at chess. ]
Chessplayers see in "chunks" like ah... many moves at once.
They're not always looking ahead as you think they do, they see a "chunk" of
moves that they committed to memory, such as a "pattern" of moves like 5 - 6
moves, and then they see that farther ahead. :) So while it gives the
impression that they're thinking 10 moves ahead, they might actually only be
thinking 2 chunks ahead, with 5 moves in each chunk.
>Backgammon is mostly pattern recognition and strategy, and requires
>you to be able to assimilate the whims of dice into your master plan,
>while constantly adjusting the plan to current conditions. You don't
>need to be able to do precise, detailed analysis in most situations,
>although it is sometimes important.
There is some pattern recognition in chess too, (see above about chunks)
>
>Poker is mostly a game of people. You need to keep track of your
>opponents at all times, knowing not just their skills, weakenesses,
>and tells, but watching for minute-to-minute variations in their
>moods. In most poker games, actual card skills are secondary.
>
>(Chess players, correct me
>if I'm wrong.) Poker, on the other hand, demands that you do this at
>every turn.
>
Most chessplayers claim to play the board and not the man, but I have my doubts
on some of them.
I think Fischer didn't always play the board. :)
Chesspride
>I frankly do not know how you could write such - nonsense - the
>computer produced some great chess. How many moves
>exactly did it make in game six?
I watched three of the games ... live... in person...in NYC.
And I saw the others.
The general quality of the computer's play...stunk.
...Qa5 in game 1 was a rotten move.
The machine played VERY VERY well in Game 2.
But the others...were terrible.
And game 6...looked more like someone taking a dive...than a real game. I'll
concede that the variation was a calculated risk by the K team...they thought
the machine's algorithm would overrate the piece in the complications.
But hey...that's true of the GM v. GM games in the line too (grin).
Overall...there was more drama in the Anand v. Karpov match.
And Game 1 of Anand v. Karpov was better than any game produced by Deep
Blue...except for Game 2 (which, of course, was spoiled by the ending).
Eric C. Johnson
former USCF 2227 now just a lowly 2100.
Abdul Jalib
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
> Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> skillful than the other two
Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
computer player for. What do you think?
--
Abdul
Patti Beadles
Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
>Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
>(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
>it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
>computer player for. What do you think?
I think poker would be the most difficult.
Chess can pretty much be handled by brute force analysis. All it
really takes is iron.
Backgammon doesn't lend itself well to this, because the possibile
positions get out of hand so quickly. Nonetheless, a good neural net
can easily narrow the choices down to just a few, and if you had
enough cycles you could roll out three candidate plays in a fairly
short time.
Poker, on the other hand, often doesn't have one single correct play
for a situation. An optimal strategy is really only optimal against
one particular person, and even that would be hard... you'd have to be
able to figure out how he alters his play over time, and adapt to
that.
Abdul, do you think you could write a computer program that could kick
your butt at LTH?
-P
--
Patti Beadles |
pat...@netcom.com/pat...@gammon.com |
http://www.gammon.com/ | The deep end isn't a place
or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | for dipping a toe.
Jim Geary
mistaken as necessarily having its answer correlate with the question
posed by the orignal querist.
Jim Geary | Hi to all the chessplayers I may
jaygee at primenet dot com | have known 10+ years ago who see
http://www.primenet.com/~jaygee/ | this; it's me. Visit my web page
| to see what I've been wasting my
| time on since college.
| SGR, if you read this, send me
| a note for the money I owe you.
On 4 Jun 1999, Abdul Jalib wrote:
> acu...@es.co.nz (helmet) writes:
>
> > This is being posted to all three game groups.
> > Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> > skillful than the other two
>
> Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
> (chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
> it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
> computer player for. What do you think?
>
> --
> Abdul
>
>
gamb...@my-deja.com
> Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
> >Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
> >(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
> >it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
> >computer player for. What do you think?
>
> I think poker would be the most difficult.
I'm not sure. But a tremendous amount of effort has
been expended to get to the current point in computer
chess. Poker and backgammon have each received much less
attention than chess. I believe that the best backgammon
programs are quite close to the best human players, but
I'm not expert enough to know.
> Chess can pretty much be handled by brute force analysis. All it
> really takes is iron.
I'm pretty sure that the best chess programs do a significant
amount of tree pruning in order to reduce the extremely
large number of variations to something doable.
> Backgammon doesn't lend itself well to this, because the possibile
> positions get out of hand so quickly. Nonetheless, a good neural net
> can easily narrow the choices down to just a few, and if you had
> enough cycles you could roll out three candidate plays in a fairly
> short time.
The best backgammon programs are neural net based.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Alan Webb
>There can be as much as 20 possible options or more on each move. Take a
look at
>the position below. More options than you can shake a stick at. Some good,
some
>terrible. It takes a lot of experience and knowledge to know where to move
here.
>
>For non-backgammon players X is moving clockwise and has rolled a 4 and a
2. An
>example move is 4 from the 8 point (hitting) plus 2 from the 6 point
(covering)
>which in backgammon notation would read 8/4* 6/4. there are a bunch of
other
>choices though and only 1 will give you the best chance of winning the
game.
>pip count relates to the amount of points (pip) you are away from your goal
>which is off the board.
>
>
>
>Score X(Webby)-O(Jelly): 0-1
>Cube centered
>
> X to play (4-2)
>
> +24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
> | X O | | X O O X |
> | O | | O X |
> | O | | O X |
> | O | | X |
> | O | | |
> | |BAR| |
> | X | | |
> | X | | O |
> | X | | X O |
> | X | | X O |
> | O O X | | X X O |
> +-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
>
> Pipcount X: 158 O: 162 X-O: 0-1
> CubeValue: 1
>
>
>Pleaseeee. Chess players, Poker players, Go players, tiddlywinks players
>whatever. DON'T regard backgammon as a "Chuck the dice and whoever rolls
the
>most doubles wins the game" game. Believe it or not, sometimes high doubles
are
>bad, but now we are getting into heavy timing issues ;)
>
As promised... the "best" move is computer evaluated to be 18/14 6/4*.
Followed closely behind with 8/4* 6/4.
>
>
>Regards
>
>Alan Webb
>
>Ps. I'll post what is considered to be the best move in a few days,
although RGB
>regulars will recognise it from posts gone by.
>
>
>
>
>Webby's Backgammon Site
>
>http://marina.fortunecity.com/frog/303/BGHome.htm
>
>(quiz with a bunch of positions like the one above)
>
>
Gilbert Palmer
Chesspride wrote in message
<19990604173220...@ng-cs1.aol.com>...
>I watched three of the games ... live... in person...in NYC.
>
>And I saw the others.
>
>The general quality of the computer's play...stunk.
I appreciate you may have more knowledge on this than I do, and
perhaps I should not have used the 'nonsense' word. But I did
follow the games very closely as well, and I truly think it is
difficult to make a true appraisal of the computer's play based
on traditional labels. The games were not pretty but by god
they were deep. I mean it was Kasparov it was playing!
>
>...Qa5 in game 1 was a rotten move.
>
>The machine played VERY VERY well in Game 2.
>
>But the others...were terrible.
>
>And game 6...looked more like someone taking a dive...than a
real game. I'll
>concede that the variation was a calculated risk by the K
team...they thought
>the machine's algorithm would overrate the piece in the
complications.
>
>But hey...that's true of the GM v. GM games in the line too
(grin).
>
>Overall...there was more drama in the Anand v. Karpov match.
Oh yes, wonderful !
>And Game 1 of Anand v. Karpov was better than any game
produced by
This was a stunning game - but do you recall game two ? We had
a thread about this game of months and months ago - there
Karpov missed a win with ...Qe8 (Anand earlier missed a draw I
think).
Regarding Gazza and Deep Blue - will you settle for "beaten"
instead of "thrashed"?
Me Again
>
> In article <yer3e07...@shell9.ba.best.com>,
> Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
> >Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
> >(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
> >it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
> >computer player for. What do you think?
>
> I think poker would be the most difficult.
>
> really takes is iron.
I thought it took sand. :-)
jc
Paul Hankin
>
>> This is being posted to all three game groups.
>> Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
>> skillful than the other two
>
>(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
>it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
>computer player for. What do you think?
I'd guess that to produce a near-optimal program, heads-up limit holdem
would be the easiest, backgammon next, and chess the most difficult.
There just aren't that many truly different situations in poker
relative to the other two games, and the number of game-positions is
more-or-less what defines how difficult it is to write an optimal
player. Backgammon is clearly easier than chess; even now, if you want
a practically optimal program just let Jellyfish or Snowie pick its
plays by rolling out the position at every move. Although this will
mean it takes several days to complete a game, it's not hard to imagine
that in a few years computers will be fast enough to make this a
practical method.
But, if you want a truly optimal opponent, probably poker is the
hardest because although many situations are fairly similar, they're
not *exactly* the same, and although the state-space is smaller than
that of backgammon or chess, the presence of hidden information (which
is known to one player, but not the other) makes the optimal strategy
calculation very difficult.
--
Paul Hankin
ma...@my-deja.com
Hey this is quickly said.
Backgammon easier to program as chess ???
Easy to say now ,since the main work is done (Neural net has been
invented).
For a long while many 'expert' people thought that backgammon was a lot
more difficult to compute than Chess.(since chess programs were up 2400
elo Fide while
neither JF,TD,SNW,Motif... were born).
Gib (Mattew Ginsberg) is demonstating that bridge is on the right way
(no one could think that few months ago).
did many people try to compute poker ?
I mean top programmer !
I don't think so and i'm quite sure the job is just a bit more complex
as to program
Gin rummy :)
Just let any top programmer begin to work at poker and you'll see!
what about Go :(no hidden information)
remember :
a very very very rich Japanese industrial promised a lot of million
dollars to the first guy who provide a computer Go player able to reach
1st Ku level
(medium..advanced player).
That was about 10 years ago.
Right now the best Go programs stand +- 10 Ku (beginner player).
I'm not sure any rich people risks a lot of money for 1rst top poker
software .
Do you want a lot of money?
Work about Go engine !
And find the right way,or play poker well (no bluff ?!!).
Hope you can understand,
thanks.
helmet
>But, if you want a truly optimal opponent, probably poker is the
>hardest because although many situations are fairly similar, they're
>not *exactly* the same, and although the state-space is smaller than
>that of backgammon or chess, the presence of hidden information (which
>is known to one player, but not the other) makes the optimal strategy
>calculation very difficult.
>--
>Paul Hankin
That isnt the only problem, a program which always played the
theoretically best plays would be very easy for the opponents to read.
If for example it always raised when it had a good hand all
the opponents would quickly realise it was best to fold.
helmet
Tad Perry
>In article <yer3e07...@shell9.ba.best.com>,
>Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
>>Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
>>(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
>>it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
>>computer player for. What do you think?
>
>
>Chess can pretty much be handled by brute force analysis. All it
>really takes is iron.
>
>positions get out of hand so quickly. Nonetheless, a good neural net
>can easily narrow the choices down to just a few, and if you had
>enough cycles you could roll out three candidate plays in a fairly
>short time.
>
>for a situation. An optimal strategy is really only optimal against
>one particular person, and even that would be hard... you'd have to be
>able to figure out how he alters his play over time, and adapt to
>that.
>
>Abdul, do you think you could write a computer program that could kick
>your butt at LTH?
Interesting. I have always figured that the optimal computer player
for holdem is not that far off in the future. Could be wrong as the
opinion may be based on incorrect assumptions.
The limit holdem problem is the most difficult, followed by pot limit
and then by no-limit. In fact the no-limit heads-up case may have been
trivial as Mike Caro's Orac may already be the answer to that
question.
However I have not seen a description of the algorithm to make a
judgement on whether there is or is not room for improvement to the
approach.
tvp
Abdul Jalib
> In article <yer3e07...@shell9.ba.best.com>,
> Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
> >Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
> >(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
> >it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
> >computer player for. What do you think?
>
> I think poker would be the most difficult.
>
> Chess can pretty much be handled by brute force analysis. All it
> really takes is iron.
>
> Backgammon doesn't lend itself well to this, because the possibile
> positions get out of hand so quickly. Nonetheless, a good neural net
> can easily narrow the choices down to just a few, and if you had
> enough cycles you could roll out three candidate plays in a fairly
> short time.
>
> Poker, on the other hand, often doesn't have one single correct play
> for a situation. An optimal strategy is really only optimal against
> one particular person, and even that would be hard... you'd have to be
> able to figure out how he alters his play over time, and adapt to
> that.
By "optimal", I meant game theoretic optimal, i.e., the strategy
that does better than any other strategy against an optimal opponent
who is trying to make you do the worst. Such an optimal heads up
player would be undefeatable; the best you could do is fight to a
draw if you were an optimal player yourself.
In order to find the optimal strategy, you have to be able to
search to the end of the game tree, at least implicitly. For
example, in chess your opponent could move any of his pawns or
knights on the first play to one of a few spaces, then you could
respond with any of your pawns or knights to one of a few spaces, and
so on until you have explored every possible game to the end.
The complexity of finding an optimal strategy depends on
the number of nodes in this tree, which depends on how
bushy the tree is (how many possible state changes at each point)
and how deep/tall the tree is (how long the game lasts.) Of the
two factors, depth/height and bushiness, depth/height has a bigger
impact on the complexity. (This is for the same reason that
3^8 > 8^3. 3^8 = 6561, but 8^3 = 512, where "x^y" stands for
raising x to the yth power.)
In chess, the end game can go on indefinitely. So too in backgammon.
In poker, you can get into an infinite raise loop. However, in
practice you'd never need to raise more than a certain number of
times. For heads up limit hold'em, I should think 10 raises would
be more than sufficient. Past that you just assume both players
put in an infinite number of bets, or that they just stop. This
happens when both players have the best possible hand. You could
either prove that a certain number of raises is sufficient, or come
up with an optimal strategy for a certain number of raises and then
show that is cannot be improved upon by upping the raise limit.
Therefore, the full game tree for heads up poker is much less deep/tall
than full game tree for either chess or backgammon, even if all the
endless loops are identified in chess or backgammon. Hence, heads up
poker is likely an easier game to make an absolutely optimal computer
player for.
Of chess and backgammon, my intuition is that the game tree for
chess is both more bushy and deeper/taller, and so chess would be
the most difficult to write an optimal player for.
> Abdul, do you think you could write a computer program that could kick
> your butt at LTH?
(LTH = limit Texas Hold'em poker.) Given sufficient programming time
and a heads up format, yes. (My educational background in mathematics,
software engineering, and artificial intelligence.) However, writing
an absolutely optimal heads up limit player is beyond me. The
combinatorics (the bushiness and height/depth of the tree) of limit
Texas Hold'em seem to put the solution out of reach of present day
computer systems. If the next 40 years of computer hardware
developments rival the last 40 years, the exponential growth of
computer capabilities might overtake the exponential growth of the
states in Hold'em.
--
Abdul
David Steele
In chess we have
> now reached the stage where a World Champion (Kasparov) got
> thrashed by a mainframe computer -
If you call
A) A short 6-game match
the only losses for K being:
B) Kasparov resigning in a drawn position
C) an opening book mistake that DB simply looked up to win.
a thrashing...
I call it good marketing.
Then OK. But the computers are not that good yet to thrash everyone.
I thought another IBM researcher made a world champion level Backgammon
program about 10 years ago, Scientific American had it on the cover
once.
G. Tesauro is the guy I think.
DS
Tom Weideman
<Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
>In chess, the end game can go on indefinitely.
Not really. According to current tournament rules, where 50 moves made
without a piece being captured or a pawn being moved is a draw. Of course,
this rule has been changing of late (new exceptions have been added to this
rule - it's been awhile, and I could be wrong, but a vague memory tells me R
+ B vs. R is one example), precisely because of computer analysis that shows
that endgames previously thought to be drawn are wins for one side, but the
minimum number of moves to force the win is >50. Okay, so if we want the
"purist" version where this 50-move rule doesn't exist, we can still see
that the games are finite in length (before we come to an evaluation, which
is what matters). Consider this: The board has 64 squares and starts with
32 pieces. There is only a finite number of positions achieveable with
these constraints (there are obviously some weird considerations like the
fact that you'll never see a pawn on the 1st or 8th rank (where it
promotes), a king in triple check, or a promoted pawn with no other pieces
missing from the board, but these don't change the fact that the game length
is finite). If optimal play by both sides results in exactly the same
position (with the same player to move, and with the same moves available,
such as castling and en passant captures), then the analysis can end - the
"value" of this game is obviously a draw (note that there is a tournament
rule for this as well, only a position must be reached 3 times).
The same can be done with backgammon. When a branch circles back and
repeats itself (and it must do so before it goes on indefinitely), the
evaluation process of that branch closes.
Despite the fact that chess and backgammon are not open-ended games, I still
agree with this:
>Therefore, the full game tree for heads up poker is much less deep/tall
>than full game tree for either chess or backgammon, even if all the
>endless loops are identified in chess or backgammon. Hence, heads up
>poker is likely an easier game to make an absolutely optimal computer
>player for.
Tom Weideman
Heldar
rule then is that it becomes a draw if more than twice the minimum number of
moves is expended, and still no checkmate, piece captured, or pawn moved. I
think this is to keep games from going on forever when one player doesn't
have the knowledge of how to force checkmate.
Jim Geary
50-move rule be extended; this is not one of them.
Jim Geary
jaygee at primenet dot com
http://www.primenet.com/~jaygee/
Tom Weideman
<Da...@heldar.com> wrote:
>A king v. king, bishop, knight can take more than 50 moves. I believe the
>rule then is that it becomes a draw if more than twice the minimum number of
>moves is expended, and still no checkmate, piece captured, or pawn moved. I
>think this is to keep games from going on forever when one player doesn't
>have the knowledge of how to force checkmate.
Unless the theory on this had changed (and I'll concede that I may not have
heard that in the last 8 years or so a computer has found a weird starting
position where this is the case), the N + B vs nothing ending can be won by
force in less than 50 moves. Still, both of us are nitpicking, since this
is irrelevant to the issue.
Tom Weideman
Stig Eide
best play in poker. Random bluffing/bidding are also part of a
theoretically perfect gameplan. But - what makes poker more difficult
(at least in some aspects) than backgammon and chess, is that a
good player plays better than the theoretical optimum! He still can't
beat a computer that plays optimal, but he can win more money against
other humans than the computer can.
This is of little importance for backgammon, and a minimal aspect
of chess.
Just my 2 cents...
Stig Eide
(a backgammonplayer that would rank the three games as:
1: Chess
2: Poker
3: Backgammon)
Henri H. Arsenault
> >I do not know whether this question can indeed be answered
> >however as I am not UP in backgammon - could someone post here
> >and tell we ignorant chess players what the state of affairs is
> >with backgammon and computers?
> pun intended.
>
Poker does not fit well into this scheme of things, because the main
quality of a good poker player (one who knows all the probabilities and so
on), is the ability to tell the opponent's state of mind from subtle
signs, factors that computers are unable to deal with. Most people (not to
mention most experts) are unable to control their reflexes and the
giveaway signs that tell an expert poker player whether or not he is
bluffing, whether or not he has picked up a good hand, etc. (For example,
when they get a good hand, most players will look away from the table to
feign indifference).Poker-playing dogs will wag their tails... ;)
A player who is bluffing will make an involuntary reflex start when he is
bluffing and an opponent moves his hands towards his chips as if to call
the bluff. Even champion-level poker players cannot totally control such
reflexes, but only experts are able to spot them infallibly (and some can
feign them...). Why do you think that the same guy won the world poker
championship five times? Luck? My ass...
Anybody for a little game of poker?... ;)
Henri
andr...@my-deja.com
Chess has zero luck except maybe the opponent mistake
but that is not the true luck factor (yes he can also
die at the chess table of heart attack and you win by
default) poker and backgammon all have some quantifiable
luck factor in them (in backgammon the dice in poker the
cards fall in a certain way....)
> Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> skillful than the other two
>
PMG
helmet wrote:
> <snipped>
>
> Nice post.
> Although the computer will have difficulty
> telling when an opponent is bluffing it will also work in reverse.
> The computer would have the ultimate poker face, if it was programmed
> to bluff occasionally it would be very hard to read.
> Kasparov had a similar problem playing deep blue, he normally
> glares at opponents and psyches them out. Against deep blue
> however it was he who was out psyched
> helmet
I've punched my computer monitor several times when loosing Chess games to it,
and it never even flinches!
Pete
PMG
andr...@my-deja.com wrote:
No, Chess players rely very heavily on luck, skill will only get you so
far in Chess, when you think that you are a really good player then your
due to be humiliated by a player that you have no respect for. But
sometimes you may win a game because you were lucky enough to have a fly
buzzing around the room, and it bothered you less than your opponent.
It's a complex game (have there been any duplicate games yet? I don't
know) and because of it you have to hold your breath and rely on luck
sometimes.
Pete
Gary Philips
Henri H. Arsenault wrote among other things:
Why do you think that the same guy won the world poker
championship five times? Luck? My ass...
You're not one of Kenny Houston's psychics, are you? If you are referring to
the WSOP, nobody alive has won it more than twice. Only a couple who have
passed on have won it three times.
Gary (my lucky ass) Philips
Tom Ewall
Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote in article
<yerzp2d...@shell9.ba.best.com>...
> pat...@netcom.com (Patti Beadles) writes:
>
> > In article <yer3e07...@shell9.ba.best.com>,
> > Abdul Jalib <Abd...@PosEV.com> wrote:
> > >Someone asked me recently in email which of these three games
> > >(chess, backgammon, or, say, heads up limit Texas hold'em poker)
> > >it would be most difficult (in the future) to program an *optimal*
> > >computer player for. What do you think?
> >
> > I think poker would be the most difficult.
> >
> > Chess can pretty much be handled by brute force analysis. All it
> > really takes is iron.
> >
This statement is misleading. Sure, a computer can easily look 5, 6 moves
ahead and see a billion different possibilities, but how to evaluate those
positions? That is where the difficulty lies.
> > Backgammon doesn't lend itself well to this, because the possibile
> > positions get out of hand so quickly. Nonetheless, a good neural net
> > can easily narrow the choices down to just a few, and if you had
> > enough cycles you could roll out three candidate plays in a fairly
> > short time.
> >
Backgammon lends itself to "brute force" much more so than chess, for 2
reasons:
1) There are far fewer possiblities
2) The positions are easier to evaluate
Julian Haley
Tom Ewall <ewa...@wdni.com> wrote in message
news:01beb12c$da6545a0$eab2...@ewallt.weyer.com...
>
<snip>
>
> Backgammon lends itself to "brute force" much more so than chess, for 2
> reasons:
> 1) There are far fewer possiblities
> 2) The positions are easier to evaluate
1) I'm not sure what you mean by "far fewer possibilities" with backgammon
If you are referring to a player choices once the dice are thrown, then yes,
there are usually less choices available to make a legal move, however if
you factor in a 2 move lookahead which muct take in account:
(a) the player 1's cube decision
plus
(b) player 1's every legal move which can be made for each of the possible
21 unique dice combinations
plus
(c) player 2's possible cube decision based on all possible positions from
(b)
plus
(d) every legal move that can be made with each of the possible 21 uniques
dice combinations MULTIPLIED by all possible positions from (b)
as you can see, the number of possibilities will skyrocket in a very short
time..
2) Since I am a hopeless chess player, I can't comment as to if all chess
positions are harder to evaluate than all backgammon positions..
Julian
helmet
>Poker does not fit well into this scheme of things, because the main
>quality of a good poker player (one who knows all the probabilities and so
>on), is the ability to tell the opponent's state of mind from subtle
>signs, factors that computers are unable to deal with. Most people (not to
>mention most experts) are unable to control their reflexes and the
>giveaway signs that tell an expert poker player whether or not he is
>bluffing, whether or not he has picked up a good hand, etc. (For example,
>when they get a good hand, most players will look away from the table to
>feign indifference).Poker-playing dogs will wag their tails... ;)
>A player who is bluffing will make an involuntary reflex start when he is
>bluffing and an opponent moves his hands towards his chips as if to call
>the bluff. Even champion-level poker players cannot totally control such
>reflexes, but only experts are able to spot them infallibly (and some can
>feign them...). Why do you think that the same guy won the world poker
>championship five times? Luck? My ass...
>Henri
helmet
>>
>>I'd guess that to produce a near-optimal program, heads-up limit holdem
>>would be the easiest, backgammon next, and chess the most difficult.
>>There just aren't that many truly different situations in poker
>>relative to the other two games, and the number of game-positions is
>>more-or-less what defines how difficult it is to write an optimal
>>player. Backgammon is clearly easier than chess; even now, if you want
>>a practically optimal program just let Jellyfish or Snowie pick its
>>plays by rolling out the position at every move. Although this will
>>mean it takes several days to complete a game, it's not hard to imagine
>>that in a few years computers will be fast enough to make this a
>>practical method.
>>
>>hardest because although many situations are fairly similar, they're
>>not *exactly* the same, and although the state-space is smaller than
>>that of backgammon or chess, the presence of hidden information (which
>>is known to one player, but not the other) makes the optimal strategy
>>calculation very difficult.
>Programming a computer to make near perfect poker (most forms)
>decisions against conscious human opponents is hugely more complicated
>than programming a computer to make near perfect chess or backgammon
>decisions against conscious human opponents.
>Others will argue differently, but they will be wrong, and they should
>stop arguing because they have now been provided with the answer.
>Straight Flushes,
>Mike Caro
Henri H. Arsenault
<lvd...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Henri H. Arsenault wrote among other things:
> Why do you think that the same guy won the world poker
> championship five times? Luck? My ass...
>
> You're not one of Kenny Houston's psychics, are you? If you are referring to
> the WSOP, nobody alive has won it more than twice. Only a couple who have
> passed on have won it three times.
>
I don't really know, I thought I had heard that on a program on Discovery
Channel the other night, but I could be wrong, or the commentator could be
wrong...
Henri
Ed Seedhouse
>A king v. king, bishop, knight can take more than 50 moves.
Not if one plays correctly.
The max against perfect play is 34 or maybe 36 moves from *any*
position not already trivially drawn.
Ed Seedhouse
"Seedhouse" on ICC.
CFC Rating: 2050
PMG
...chess.puters and it was not a very popular idea! I was flogged for it.
By the way, who's the World Checkers Champion?
Pete
petro...@my-deja.com wrote:
> The most important two are chess and checkers (English Draughts).
> Comparing the two games is difficult, but the best analogy I've read
> said chess is like the ocean while checkers is like a deep well. Each
> game presents important ideas in opening theory, middlegame tactics,
> and endgame technique. Checkers is much more deeply rooted in English
> and American history while chess is more universal. While I want a
> chess board and pieces buried with me I challenge anyone to master
> checkers. In my opinion, the game of checkers is as hard as chess, and
> in many ways much harder and much deeper. If you disagree -- prove it
> over-the-board.
Kai G. Gauer
instance, is the measure of the total number of positions played in any way
related to the number total number of legal (ie positions resulting in a
position that could in no way (or highly unlikely) to be reached as a
result of preceeding positions? a.k.a Retrogade analysis...), "smart"
(pushing a pawn from h4-h2 as opposed to reinforcing/developing a center in
the midst of a major central exchange may/may not be considered smart) or
cooker (poker players might call this a bluff) moves (as Jonathon Schaeffer
calls them in his checkers book: "One Jump Ahead") in which a player
may/may not intentionally play a less than standard line to possibly gain
an edge while possibly placing his potential game playability at serious
risk? What sort of results have been seen in the battle of human vs
computer games in recent years, how has each game sector as a whole or
individually improved in tackling the opponent (either the ingenuity of a
human or the search skill of a comptuer or the programming skills that are
needed for a succesful computer programmer to fully analyze (which is one
of the only ways that could possibly lead to a proper analysis of ) a
game's capturing strategies, retrogade analysis techniques, development
techniques (which, in my own opinion, I have yet to see from Mr Schaeffer's
team or many other games software development teams. As a consolation note,
I (unlike Mr Schaeffer's Chinook) would not claim to be nor ever have much
of a reasonable chance of becoming amongst the best players ever. Much of
his programming cooks were seemingly pointed as specific attacks against
perhaps Tinsley only and not against other checkers players.), etc. What
sort of numerical statistics can we assign to each of these three game
sectors in terms of intelligence: ie should we really claim that one
sector's toughest opponent is a player who steps up to the board at a
frequency of one tounament sitting/decade? Sure, someday computers will
probably have the games of each more fully analyzed than any human possibly
could (perhaps computers may even solve one particular game), but does that
at all measure playing ingenuity at the table (if we might ever see the
human counterparts ever step up to the table again)? Sure, we can all
attempt to bluff a computer, but how far away is technology and/or
programming research away from significantly reducing the human factor of
game playing? And how will that help to argue any one person's case for any
one game being the most competitive? Monopoly was (almost) solved (and
perhaps shown to be undecidable in many situations) 30 years ago using
Markov Chains (a way to estimate how important/costly any one given mistake
in a game can be). If anyone has reasonable statistics on ways to
universally measure this so-called "fun"-factor of games, please include a
detailed method/outline of computation, your data/uncertainty measurement
results and references or code (please preferably encode in Mathematica
3.0.1 format as this is part of an experiment for one of my math
classes...)
thanks for
anyone's help, responses, input in their analyses of my statements
Greg Kennedy
>...chess.puters and it was not a very popular idea! I was flogged for it.
>By the way, who's the World Checkers Champion?
A few years ago (I think), the top human player died and
left a computer as the clear number one. Apparently that
person was in a class by himself among humans, and most
likely computers will remain on top forever in checkers, due
to the ever increasing speed of hardware.
I think it was called Chinook(?). Of course the nature of
checkers is that most games are drawn, so a human is at
a disadvantage to a computer in terms of endurance and
health- except for viruses.
- Greg Kennedy
petro...@my-deja.com
Chesspride
>left a computer as the clear number one. Apparently that
>person was in a class by himself among humans, and most
>likely computers will remain on top forever in checkers, due
>to the ever increasing speed of hardware.
> I think it was called Chinook(?). Of course the nature of
>checkers is that most games are drawn, so a human is at
>a disadvantage to a computer in terms of endurance and
>health- except for viruses.
>
>
>
> - Greg Kennedy
>
>
Yes...this is correct.
I, too, had been under the false impression that checkers had been
"solved"...but I came to find out that the final match between M. Tinsley and
Chinook was abandoned...after many draws...by the ailing human player...who was
ill and then died soon after.
Technically, the machine won..but not by score.
The human player's grievance...if I understood correctly...was that the machine
team's strategy was to play safely in all positions. Because of the perfect
play of the machine in known draws...the plan would mean that the human faced
the daunting task of playing out countless, tedious draws...just to stay even.
I am told there are still many active positions in checkers...positions where
perfect play is not yet known.
The human player...naturally enough...wanted an opponent who would fight and
play aggressively in these circumstances...not one who would take the first
drawn position that popped up.
The human player did not mind losing a game to the machine if it meant he got
some chances to win...in an interesting manner.
But to play out a string of tedious draws...where the only one who could lose
was the human...was too much of an abomination for him.
So...with the match score tied...he withdrew from play...leaving the machine a
most hollow victory.
And now...clearly...the machine is the best available player.
Apologies if this isn't quite right...
Eric C. Johnson
Heldar
best checkers player in the world now is a computer called Chinook.
I consider these two facts evidence that checkers is less complex than
chess -- a human "mastered" it to the point where he was unbeatable, and now
a computer has done the same thing. That really hasn't happened in chess,
yet.
Hanley
Heldar wrote:
I would note that after tinsley trsigned the match, the human #2 played chinook,
and, while I think he did lose, he won a game halfway through. I think he lost
2-1.
dave
Anders Thulin
Chesspride <chess...@aol.com> wrote:
>Apologies if this isn't quite right...
You wrote that last, but I comment on it first, because it leaves an
impression that you're not entirely sure of what you're saying.
Perhaps it would have been better to identify the points you were not
quite sure of.
>The human player...naturally enough...wanted an opponent who would fight and
>play aggressively in these circumstances...not one who would take the first
>drawn position that popped up.
From what I recall from earlier postings about Tinsley vs. Chinook,
Tinsley wanted a serious opponent. I think he had lost only five games
in forty years (that those standard statistics - they possibly include
the games against Chinook), and was hoping to get some serious
opposition.
And Tinsley withdrew after only 6 games in 1994.
It's not as if he didn't know Chinook's style -- the 1992 match was
for 40 games, and most of those were drawn: Tinsley - Chinook +4 =33 -3.
For anyone who wants to dig further into this, here are some
suggestions:
* http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook
* Search for "Chinook Schaeffer" in past postings on www.deja.com.
There was a claim more than a year ago that the Chinook team
more or less drove Tinsley to his death -- which was quite adequately
responded to by Schaeffer. It generated a lot of heat at the time.
I see at the U o Alberta site that there's a book by Schaeffer on
Chinook -- I hope he elaborates a few of the points the tended to
avoid in the news exchange. Tinsley's breaking earlier contracts in
order to play Chinook is one of those points.
I wish there was a biography on Tinsley. He certainly merits one.
>And now...clearly...the machine is the best available player.
I was under the impression that Chinook has stopped playing, so I'm
not quite as certain about that. Chinook did once lose to another
program in a computer checkers tournament -- so the point might need
some arguing.
--
Anders Thulin Anders....@telia.se 013-23 55 32
Telia ProSoft AB, Teknikringen 6, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden
andr...@my-deja.com
has an opinion on everything...
Compared to poker, backgammon where there is a clear and defined
element of chance - chess is pure strategy. your analogy about a fly
is pure BS - but hey that's my opinion. I play chess sice I was
6 and I am 42 now.
In article <375C0E47...@Chicagonet.net>,
av...@Chicagonet.net wrote:
>
>
> andr...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Forgive me but this is a silly question.
> > Chess has zero luck except maybe the opponent mistake
> > but that is not the true luck factor (yes he can also
> > die at the chess table of heart attack and you win by
> > default) poker and backgammon all have some quantifiable
> > luck factor in them (in backgammon the dice in poker the
> > cards fall in a certain way....)
> > acu...@es.co.nz (helmet) wrote:
> > > This is being posted to all three game groups.
> > > Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> > > skillful than the other two
> > >
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>
so
> far in Chess, when you think that you are a really good player then
your
> due to be humiliated by a player that you have no respect for. But
> sometimes you may win a game because you were lucky enough to have a
fly
> buzzing around the room, and it bothered you less than your opponent.
> It's a complex game (have there been any duplicate games yet? I don't
> know) and because of it you have to hold your breath and rely on luck
> sometimes.
>
> Pete
>
>
PMG
andr...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I hope you were tying to be 'funny'. Well I don't care, everyone
> has an opinion on everything...
> Compared to poker, backgammon where there is a clear and defined
> element of chance - chess is pure strategy. your analogy about a fly
> is pure BS - but hey that's my opinion. I play chess sice I was
> 6 and I am 42 now.
> [snip]
Please let me unscramble this post by throwing out the middle, here's my
original input:>>>>>>
No, Chess players rely very heavily on luck, skill will only get you so
far in Chess, when you think that you are a really good player then your
due to be humiliated by a player that you have no respect for. But
sometimes you may win a game because you were lucky enough to have a fly
buzzing around the room, and it bothered you less than your opponent.
It's a complex game (have there been any duplicate games yet? I don't
know) and because of it you have to hold your breath and rely on luck
sometimes.
>>>>>>>>>
You're probably thinking that being 42 makes you an old man or something,
it doesn't, it makes you a young fart.
You think I'm funny? You think I'm a clown? Do I make you laugh? Chess is
pure strategy? Now that's funny! Only an idiot would think he's a thinking
machine and completely unaffected by his surroundings. Every thing in the
room affects your Chess game, every sound, every smell, every color on the
walls, the lighting in the room, the table you're sitting at, the Chess
board, the Chess pieces. If you think your Chess game is "pure strategy"
then you're full of shit.
Pete
Rufus Nagel
and I like to haggle over (preferably over some beer and pizza.)
You must add the two other most-played games to your list: Go and Bridge
After must exhaustive resarch, the following points should be made.
1. There is a difference between full-information and partial information
games.
Poker has partial information. You know what you cards you have, but you
don't know what your opponents have (hopefully!)
Bridge also has partial information.
Backgammon, Chess, and Go has full information. Each player has no more
nor more less information than the other.
2. There are some games of perfect predictable outcomes and others of
imperfectly predictable outcomes.
In Backgammon, the assumption is that since dice are thrown, this is a
random event.
In Chess, althought there are variations in play, the is not a component
of the game that requires it to be random for us still to be able to call
it that game. (without dice, there is no backgammon)
Goalso obviosly lacks this type of randomness.
How about poker and bridge? Well here it gets tough. Some might say there
is no random element in bridge, because all of the cards have been dealt,
even though it does have incomplete information. In poker, there are
random elements until the river or last card is dealt, at which time it is
similar to bridge (partial-information, random)
3. One must compare the differences between variation in play leading to
different winners and intrinsic randomness of the game leading to
different winners.
This is most dramatically felt in Go. At the start of a go game, each side
is even, as the game progresses, one side becomes more dominant. At a
certain point, one may say with certainty which side will win. As one
becomes more proficient this point is reached earlier. This is similarly
true in bridge. As the game progresses, the eventual victor becomes more
easily determined, and sometimes (though less than with Go), the victor
can be absolutely determined (though the game is not over.) This leads to
the common practive in go of resigning prior to the completion of a game.
Note that there is a HUGE difference between games of "objective" chance
such as backgammon and poker, and "subjective" chance such as go and
chess. An omnipotent being will never loss a game of Go or Chess, and
omnipotent being will lose at poker and backgammon (because if that being
is able to predict the die roles, he is no longer playing backgammon, and
therefore cannot win it. Similarly if that being knows the next card to
come, she cannot be playing poker.) Bridge is a bit togher, since winning
is dependent on the style and requires a partner that is omnipotent (and
you think YOU have trouble finding a suitable partner)
Anyway, another interesting topic is which games will be ultimately
beatable by a computer?
In order of ability:
Chess Most progress, easily playing at grandmaster or above
Backgammon Better programes are very good in single games. Close to
professional level
Bridge Not really sure about this one, I don't think as much
research has been done on computer bridge partners. Anyone know?
Go Programs exist which can spank beginners, but cannot touch
professional or even skilled amateur Go players.
Poker Not very sophisticated yet. No good real-world trials.
So which game will be "solved" 1st, 2nd etc. Chess certainly seems to be
very close to being "solved", but which game will be next? Will certain
classes of games never be solved?
Food for thought,
Rufus
osman...@my-deja.com
acu...@es.co.nz (helmet) wrote:
> This is being posted to all three game groups.
> Lets here from the regulars why your game is more
> skillful than the other two
>
Hmmm away from from the usenet for a few months and here is a very
intriguing posting with 153 replies in its thread that I will probably
not be able to spare enough time to read through.
Having played both competitive chess and backgammon, and having earned
some petty cash in tournaments from both, I feel like I ought to have an
opinion. With respect to poker, however, I have consistantly lost
monies so I will unqualify myself from commenting on that.
In order to be good at chess and backgammon, one needs to develop
skills... some 'different' type of skills and some similar. In chess,
one develops skills that help, for example, tactical play or positional
ones. In backgammon one develops skills for checker play or cube
handling. Just like a good tactical chess player wants to avoid closed
positions, a good checker player in backgammon tries to avoid the cube.
Many new chess players who are awestruck with the complexity of the game
believe that it is a pure game of skills... that there is no luck
involved. Yet when your opponent blunders his queen, for example, don't
you get lucky? This bit has nothing to do with how much skillful you
are. In chess one can surely get "lucky." In the long run, however,
you start noticing that it is usually the better player who gets more
lucky.
From this perspective backgammon is quite similar. In the long run, the
better player gets more lucky because (s)he plays the odds. This "odds"
aspect constitutes the biggest contrast between chess and backgammon.
One is absolute while the other is probabilistic. For example, when you
make a good move in chess you are rewarded with a good position; whereas
a good move in backgammon provides you only the better odds. The better
odds means that you are more likely to obtain the upper hand at the end
of the play. However, better odds also means that, though less likely,
you may end up being penalized for your good move. This is a very
significant difference that makes many deterministic chess players very
uncomfortable playing backgammon.
The way backgammon gets around the luck factor is by requiring multiple
wins in tournament matches. A typical local backgammon tournament will
require 7 or 9 or 13 points to complete a single match (this is
equivalent to playing a single game in a chess tournament). Hence, your
opponent may get "lucky" in the first game, or the second, or even the
third one, but your opponent is probably not going to get lucky forever.
By requiring a match to be decided in a large number of points, for
example, the luck factor gets evened out and usually the better player
ends up winning. The cube speeds up the process a bit, but it also adds
another dimension of complexity that requires new set of skills.
The way chess gets around the "luck" factor for world championships, for
example, is by letting 12.5 points determine the outcome of a single
match. Bobby Fisher would not have become the world champion, if the
match was decided after the first game. However, in most typical chess
tournaments you play a single game against a given opponent. This
single game determines the outcome of your match against that opponent.
If you have blundered your rook and your opponent got lucky, that's too
bad. There is no recovery... not for that round.
The same people who make the claim that chess is a pure skills game,
also make a similar mistake by assuming that backgammon is a game of
pure luck. Clearly, you can get into a running game when you are 40
pips ahead and end up losing when your opponent rolls 3 double-sixes in
a row. While the odds for rolling three double-sixes in a row is very
low, it is still there. But is it fair to say that this is purely a
game of luck? How come Snowie (a computer backgammon playing program,
like Deep Thought in chess) consistently beats up the average and good
players alike? Surely it is not always getting "lucky"?
In short, both chess and backgammon require special skills. These two
are two sibling games with very different philosopies. However, once
you go beyond the skills required for an average player, you start
appreciating the finer points of each game; you start seeing the
similarities. Is it a coincidence that many top backgammon players are
also good in chess (and vice versa)? Bill Robertie, for example, is a
winner of US Speed Chess championship; also two times winner of Monte
Carlo World Backgammon Championship. He has written several chess
books, as well as backgammon books.
Here I am, looking at the back pages of one of Bill Robertie's books
entitled "backgammon for winners" (a beginner's book). There are
advertisements in the last few pages: one page for backgammon books,
another for boards; then a page for chess boards, another for chess
clocks and pieces. Now why would chess pieces be advertised in a
backgammon book? Is there a message in there somewhere? Is it possible
that both chess and backgammon may actually require similar set
of skills?
I think this is an excellent place to stop... Cheers...Osman
JP White
> Hmmm away from from the usenet for a few months and here is a very
> intriguing posting with 153 replies in its thread that I will probably
> not be able to spare enough time to read through.
>
Same here
> Is it a coincidence that many top backgammon players are
> also good in chess (and vice versa)? Bill Robertie, for example, is a
> winner of US Speed Chess championship; also two times winner of Monte
> Carlo World Backgammon Championship. He has written several chess
> books, as well as backgammon books.
I find it interesting that Bill Robertie's claim to fame in chess is with
speed chess.
Backgammon, as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, requires one to
apply skillful decisions quickly. Maybe Bill Robertie's major 'skill' is his
ability to do this very well, hence his success at speed chess also.
Without wanting to start another triple NG thread, I see we have talked
about skill and stress. How about how 'interesting' or 'fascinating' each
game is? The game one finds the most fascinating will be the one you want to
play the most.
Personally I would rank the three games as follows in terms if interest.
1. Backgammon
2. Chess
3. Poker
Thinking about this, I find some of the factors that determine my preference
to be.
a. Raw IQ or Intellect
b. Attention span
c. Psychological intellect/understanding
Not being of mensa standard IQ I soon became discouraged with chess, I
simply didn't have the mental horsepower to compete. Studying books wasn't
enough.
I have almost no ability to hide my emotions (I can be read like a book),
playing poker for money would soon put me in the poor house, hence no
interest in this at all.
Backgammon on the other hand matches my personality/skill set much better.
Games are short, raw IQ is not as important, (experience, study and luck can
make up for this shortcoming). One factor I find most interesting is that
even as a beginner, you can still win against a strong player if you get
lucky, which for me, provides an extra little bit of motivation (and
frustration when it happens the other way around).
What are the factors that make you interested in your game of preference?
How would you rank the three games?
--
JP White
Mailto:jp.w...@nashville.com
emas...@my-deja.com
luck. So if you want you can try your luck at Royal Casino Club &
Sports Book at: http://www.starnetc.com/r2/hit.cgi?rid=44730&lid=18940
Tim
Of course you can read ppl much more in rea llife, but you can still
read ppl according to how they bet on the comp.
emas...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Well on the computer there is no one to read. It is pretty much all
> luck. So if you want you can try your luck at Royal Casino Club &
> Sports Book at: http://www.starnetc.com/r2/hit.cgi?rid=44730&lid=18940
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
--
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