Dusting off my checkers program Milhouse…

I noticed that Martin Fierz released a new version of his Checkerboard program, so I thought I’d set it sparring against my own program, milhouse. The Cake engine it ships with walks all over my program, but it managed this win against Simple Checkers.

[Event ""]
[Date ""]
[Black "Milhouse"]
[White "Simple Checkers"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. 9-14 23-18 2. 14x23 27x18 3. 5-9 32-27 4. 12-16 27-23 5. 16-20 23-19 6. 20x27 31x24 7.
10-14 26-23 8. 7-10 24-20 9. 8-12 28-24 10. 1-5 22-17 11. 9-13 18x9 12. 5x14 25-22 13. 6-9
23-18 14. 14x23 22-18 15. 13x22 21-17 16. 23-26 30x23 17. 3-8 17-14 18. 10x17 19-15 19.
2-7 23-19 20. 17-21 18-14 21. 9x18 15-10 22. 7x14 19-15 23. 22-25 29x22 24. 18x25 15-10
25. 25-30 10-6 26. 14-18 6-1 27. 18-23 1-6 28. 23-27 6-10 29. 27-32 10-14 30. 12-16 14-18
31. 32-28 18-14 32. 28x19 14-10 33. 30-26 10-7 34. 19-15 7-10 35. 15x6 *

Addendum: I did some quick analysis using both Cake and Milhouse this morning, trying to locate the bad moves that each engine made. I haven’t stared at it too deeply, but it appeared that Simple Checkers walked into a poor opening which I suspect that if I looked hard, I could find in one of my checkers references. Cake finds the first 5 moves in its book, but then Simple Checkers plays 5. … 23-19, which is out of book. Still, upon a 31 ply search, Cake scores the position at -126, which is over a full man down, which would be tough to overcome.


 White to move, but is already behind. Simple Checkers has walked into a poor opening.   Cake and Milhouse both agree that this position is weak, and White is already almost a full man down.

White to move, but is already behind. Simple Checkers has walked into a poor opening. Cake and Milhouse both agree that this position is weak, and White is already almost a full man down.


Addendum: As I suspected, the opening is a known weak one for White, and it begins right back at the second move of the game, although the opening is still part of the standard 3 move opening set, so some possibilities remain. The opening is called the Double Cross, and is considered weak for White (in particular, 1. … 23-18 is not considered a proper response.) Jim Loy has a nifty page full of openings with some insightful commentary, and shows a Tinsley/Fortman game where this opening was featured, with an interesting cook played by Tinsley.

Addendum: Jim Loy has some interesting analysis of the Double Cross opening here.

2 thoughts on “Dusting off my checkers program Milhouse…

  1. Gleydson Macedo

    Hello Mr. Mark! I know it may sound way too invasive, but I found your website as a Pixar-related one through Google. 🙂

    As you know, Pixar is opening a branch here in Vancouver, BC, and as a computer guy who loves animation, I’m very much excited and interested about what Pixar is bringing here.

    Sorry again for using this space to do this kind of stuff, but I know that “strange things” happen when one starts looking for some confusion. Hehehehehe…

    I know that Pixar has Oracle Applications and I’m wondering here if anything related to it is coming to Canada. Any clues?

    Yes, very much excited and who wouldn’t want to work for your company? I just read you have been there for almost 20 years! WOW! That must be beyond great.

    Thanks for your attention – if you got up to here and haven’t deleted my comment. Hehehehehe…

  2. Maynard Kassabaum

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