Isbn: 0130065374
Sales Rank: 2106910
Subjects:  1. Computer Books: General   

Isbn: 0444871594
Sales Rank: 2167455
Subjects:  1. Chess    2. Chess - General    3. Computer Books: Operating Systems    4. Games / Gamebooks / Crosswords   

Isbn: 3540657665
Sales Rank: 1373544
Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - Languages / Programming    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Games    4. Computers    5. Congresses    6. Entertainment & Games - General    7. General    8. Hardware - Personal Computers - General    9. Microcomputer Programming    10. Microcomputers    11. Programming - Software Development   

Isbn: 3540430806
Sales Rank: 1897559
Subjects:  1. Computer Bks - General Information    2. Computer Books: General    3. Computer Games    4. Computer Programming    5. Computer Science    6. Computers    7. General    8. Programming - General    9. Video & Electronic - General    10. Computer and games    11. Computers / Computer Science    12. algorithmic learning    13. complexity    14. computational learning    15. data mining    16. game theory    17. pattern association    18. reinforcement learning    19. search algorithms    20. search strategies    21. searching   

Isbn: 0444509496
Sales Rank: 1266501
Subjects:  1. Artificial Intelligence    2. Artificial Intelligence - General    3. Computer Bks - General Information    4. Computer Books: General    5. Computer Games    6. Entertainment & Games - General    7. Games    8. Programming    9. Programming - General    10. Video & Electronic - General   

Reviews (10)

A Gripping Read
Well I never thought that title would describe for a book on a project to create a world champion beating chequers playing program!

I originally read the first half of the book when staying with a friend. When I got home I had - for the first time in my life - to buy a book merely to read half of it, so un-put-downable is it.

The book requires no technical knowledge either or computers of of draughts (and to an extent if one approaches it expecting technical insights in to either one will be disappointed).

In practice it's such a good read as the story is well told and gathers momentum the nearer the author gets to the goal.It is focused on the people and the project and not the technicals.Schaeffer recounts his hopes, feelings and motivations with a brutal honesty - never shying away from an accurate description when authorial licence might have presented him in a better light.

Very interesting!
Once I started to read this book I found it difficult to put down.Granted I am addicted to playing checkers against my computer when taking breaks at work, but still.... This is very interesting material for checkers players and computer programmers alike.

However, I do have a couple of problems with the book.First, it is very poorly edited.There are a number of grammatical mistakes, [one right on the first paragraph], the author at times goes into unnecessary tangents and, in general the book is too long and repetitive.In addition,it bothered me that, perhaps because of the author's familiarity with chess, he decided to use chess notation to describe the games.This makes it more difficult for checkers players to follow the games while reading the book.The author/editor should have made the effort to use checkers notation or to provide better diagrams.

Isbn: 0521808324
Sales Rank: 577610
Subjects:  1. Combinatorial Analysis    2. Combinatorics    3. Congresses    4. Game Theory    5. Mathematics    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Combinatorics & graph theory    8. Mathematics / General   

Reviews (3)

Fascinating
I don't have read all the book, but I read most of the scientific papers it is composed by. I think they are very interesting and puzzling, on the border line between serious mathematics (game theory and all this stuff) and "recreational math" (like the angel problem). It would be a good read also for people interested in computer games.

great book
This book is full of beatiful work.Every section is an investigation into some combinatorial game, or some idea in combinatorial game theory.Most of the material is clearly presented and all should be accessible toundergrads, but be warned: this is not simple stuff.But, as we all know,beautiful mathematics isn't always simple.The book also includes asection with 52 unsolved problems, which should be of considerable interestto the curious.