CHINESE CHECKERS – IN

THE LIGHT OF AI
Computer Game Playing

Under the Guidance of Prof.

Pushpak Bhattacharyya

Presented by:
Anwesha Das, Prachi Garg
and Asmita Sharma
1
OUTLINE
1. BACKGROUND

2. HISTORY OF CHINESE CHECKERS

3. INTRODUCTION - GAME
DESCRIPTION

4. AI – PERSPECTIVE
1. MINIMAX ALGORITHM
2. ALPHA – BETA PRUNING

5. HEURISTICS

7. CONCLUSION

8. REFERENCES
 Computer Games &
AI
 Game playing was one of the earliest researched
AI problems since
 games seem to require intelligence (heuristics)
 state of games are easy to represent
 only a restricted number of actions are allowed
and outcomes are defined by precise rules
 It has been studied for a long time
 Babbage (tic-tac-toe)
 Turing (chess)
 Sole Motive is to get a game solved, meaning
that the entire game tree can be built and
outcome of the game can be determined even
before the game is started.

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 Class of Chinese
Checkers
It falls under the category of zero-sum
discrete finite
deterministic games of perfect
information.

 Zero-sum: In the outcome of any game, Player

A’s gain
equals player B’s loss.
 Discrete: All game states and decisions are
discrete values.
 Finite: Only a finite number of states and
decisions.
 Deterministic: No chance (no die rolls).
 Perfect information: Both players can see 4the
 History of Chinese
Checkers

 Chinese checker was invented in Germany

under the name of “stern-halma”.

 It is a variation of “Halma” which is Greek

for “Jump”, invented by an American
professor from Boston, Dr. George
Howard Monks (1853-1933) between
1883 and 1884

5
 History of Chinese
Checkers

 Developed by Chinook
 Used alpha-beta search
 Used a pre computed perfect end
game by means of a database
 In 1992 Chinook won the US Open
 ….. And challenged for the World
Championship

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 History of Chinese
Checkers
 Dr Marion Tinsley had been the world
champion for over 40 years
 … only losing three games in all that time
 Against Chinook he suffered his fourth and
fifth defeat
 ….. But ultimately won 21.5 to 18.5
 In August 1994 there was a re-match but
Marion Tinsley withdrew for health reasons
 Chinook became the official world
champion

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 History of Chinese
Checkers
 Chinook did not use any learning
mechanism.
 Kumar in 2000- Learning was done
using a neural network with the
synapses being changed by an
evolutionary strategy.
 The best program beat a commercial
application 6-0
 The program was presented at CEC
2000 (San Diego) and remain
undefeated
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 Components of the
The gameGame
can be defined as a kind of
search problem
problem with the following
with the following
components :
1. A finite set of states.
2. The initial state: board position, indication
of whose move it is
3. A set of operators: define the legal moves
that a player can make
4. A terminal test: determines when the
game is over (terminal states)
5. A utility (payoff) function: gives a numeric
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 Introduction – How to
play?
2 to 6 players can play the game ,having 10
same-colored marbles
 At the start - player's marbles are in the ten
holes of the star point that has the same color
as his marbles
 Goal - move all marbles of one color from
starting point to the star point on the opposite
side of the board
 No game pieces are removed from the board.
Introduction - Constraints
marble can move by rolling to a hole next to it

by jumping over one marble, of any color, to a

free hole, along the lines connecting the holes in
a hexagonal pattern

several jumps in a row, but only one roll

cannot both roll the marble and jump

with it at the same turn
 Minimax
 1944 - John von Neumann outlined a
search method (Minimax) that
maximize your position whilst
minimizing your opponent’s
 Minimax searches state-space using the
following assumptions
– your opponent is ‘as clever’ as you
– if your opponent can make things worse for
you, they will take that move
– your opponent won’t make mistake

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 Minimax - Example
1 A
MAX

1 B -3 C
MIN

4 D 1 E 2 F -3 G
MAX

H I J K L M N O
4 -5 -5 1 -7 2 -3 -8

= agent = opponent
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 Minimax to a Fixed Ply-
Depth
 Usually not possible to expand a game to
end-game status
 have to choose a ply-depth that is
achievable with reasonable time and
resources
 absolute ‘win-lose’ values become
heuristic scores
 heuristics are devised according to
knowledge of the game
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 Minimax - Example
1 A 8
0
MAX

14 B -3 8 C
0 -3
MIN

43 D 10 E 24 F -3-3 G
MAX

H I J K L M N O
4 -5 -5 1 -7 2 -3 -8

= agent = opponent
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 Alpha-Beta Pruning
 Fixed-depth Minimax searches entire
space down to a certain level, in a
breadth-first fashion. Then backs values
up. Some of this is wasteful search

 Alpha-Beta pruning identifies paths which

need not be explored any further

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Alpha-Beta Pruning
Traverse the search tree in depth-first order
At each MAX node n, alpha(n) = maximum
value found so far
At each MIN node n, beta(n) = minimum value
found so far
 Note: The alpha values start at -infinity and only
increase, while beta values start at +infinity and only
decrease.

Beta cutoff: Given a MAX node n, cut off the

search below n (i.e., don’t generate or examine
any more of n’s children) if alpha(n) >= beta(i)
for some MIN node ancestor i of n.
Alpha cutoff: stop searching below MIN node n 17
Alpha-beta Pruning
A
MAX

<=6 B C
MIN

6 D >=8 E
MAX

H I J K
6 5 8

= agent = opponent
18
Alpha-beta Pruning
>=6 A
MAX

6 B <=2 C
MIN

6 D >=8 E 2 F G
MAX

H I J K L M
6 5 8 2 1

= agent = opponent
19
Alpha-beta Pruning
>=6 A

MAX

6 B 2 C
MIN

6 D >=8 E 2 F G

MAX

H I J K L M
6 5 8 2 1

= agent = opponent
20
Alpha-beta Pruning
6 A
MAX

6 B 2 C alpha
cutoff
MIN

6 D >=8 E beta 2 F G
cutoff
MAX

H I J K L M
6 5 8 2 1

= agent = opponent
21
We use α-β pruning, which can optimize move. Here
white balls may take 20 & black 22 moves - α-β pruning
chooses the better move.
Heuristics
Chinese Checker, possible heuristics :-
Random- the computer makes a move randomly
without taking into consideration the current board
configuration 
 Caveat - the random player may not leave its
triangle at all -denying the chance to the opponent
to occupy its winning triangle

Vertical Displacement(VD)- generates all moves with

minimax algorithm & sums up the vertical distance for its
pieces and adds them. Same done for the opponent.
 Static Evaluation Function=totalself - totalopponent
Vertical / Horizontal Displacement (HD)- considers
the horizontal pieces as well in deciding the next move.
 It is best to play in the middle of the board.
Formula is W.F*VD+HD where W.F=weight factor which
decides how much of importance is to be given to keep
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the pieces in the middle compared to jumping vertically
 Heuristics
 Vertical/Horizontal Displacement with
split – move the pieces to the edges of the
destination triangle once they have moved in
 Create space for others to come in

Back piece moving strategy – give more

weightage to the moves where the back pieces
move forward than the front pieces
 Pieces move in clusters.
 Concept of disuse wt.
 Optimization
1. Consider those nodes of minimax algorithm
which show some progress
o Speed improves significantly
2. Shortest depth first in case of a win
o Path which takes to the goal faster
3. Expand nodes with maximum value to
improve α β pruning
4. Sort to increase the gain of α β pruning

Tradeoff is O(n2 ) sorting algorithm versus O(n)

best move.
 Horizon Effect
 When inevitable bad moves are put off
beyond the cutoff on the depth of lookahead,
e.g. stalling moves by pushing an unfavorable
outcome “over the search horizon” to a place
where it cannot be detected
 The unavoidable damaging move is thus not
dealt with
 Use of singular extensions where one “clearly
better” move is searched beyond the normal
depth limit without incurring more cost

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 Quiescence Search
 Always search to limited depth - blind to states
just beyond this boundary
 Might chose a path on the basis that it
terminates in a good heuristic … but next
move could be catastrophic
 Overcome by quiescence search – positions in
which favourable captures are avoided by
extending search depth to a quiescent
position.

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 Chinese
Checker

How to efficiently move to goal?

Depicting the board
Back piece moving strategy
configuration of a 2 player
– moving in clusters
game.

Make intelligent moves

Preference given to the
Although less powerful ,
backward, edge pieces
push the backends
among the rest

No pieces to leave behind-

Horizon effect
Best to play in the middle,
All possible moves from a particular piece
make the best move

Identify the correct

move
 Conclusion
 Board Game – a wonderful tool to reinforce
learning
 Study done on the Chinese Checker
distance, regular polygons on checker plane,
its variations of the Pythagorean theorem.
 Both minimax and alpha-beta pruning
assume perfect play from the opposition.
 Increase in processing power will not always
make exhaustive search of game tree
possible – need pruning techniques to
increase the search depth with the same
computing resources
32
 References

Reading material from

whitneybabcockmcconnell.com
of CMU.
http://hem.passagen.se/baolan/r
elease/china.pdf
- Master’s thesis by Paula
Ulfhake , Lund University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin
ese_checkers
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/
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
THANK YOU