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Scientific American Backgammon Issue

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06-21-2014 , 09:53 PM

randyguthrie

stranger

Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 3

I found a copy of the June 1980 Scientific American with a cover story about backgammon on Ebay. I scanned the article. Here is a link.

https://www.dropbox.com/home/Public/SA%20Backgammon

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06-21-2014 , 11:50 PM

Taper_Mike

adept

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,030

Backgammon Galore! has some more information about the BKG program.

BKG, a Program That Plays Backgammon
Hans J. Berliner, 1977

Backgammon Computer Program Beats World Champion
Hans J. Berliner, 1980
Artificial Intelligence, vol. 14 (1980), pp. 205–220.

Computer Backgammon
Hans J. Berliner, 1980
Scientific American, vol. 242, no. 6 (June 1980), pp. 64–72.

Mike

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06-22-2014 , 12:35 AM

Taper_Mike

adept

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,030

Here are some more links from Backgammon Galore!, including a one to a match file you can open in GnuBg or XG.

BKG 9.8 vs. Villa
Raccoon+, Aug 2006

BKG 9.8 vs. Villa
Andreas Schneider, June 1992

BKG beats world champion
Marty Storer, Sept 1991

Match File
PR: Villa 6.60, BKG 13.46
(Click to view; right-click to download.)

Enjoy.

Mike

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06-22-2014 , 09:27 AM

Robertie

old hand

Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 1,954

The match took place late on a Sunday afternoon, about an hour after Villa had defeated Laubmeier for the World Championship title. (25-21, if memory serves) Paul Magriel and I did the closed-circuit commentary to a crowd of a couple of hundred still in the playing room. Concensus opinion at the time was that Villa played OK but was pretty unlucky. From the XG analysis it looks like he was very unlucky indeed.

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