Could Backgammon Be Solved?

by Douglas Zare
1 August 2007

Douglas Zare

Two months ago, in my June 2007 column, "The Essence of Backgammon," I remarked that the game of checkers is too complicated to be completely solved at present. While that still seems to be accurate, researchers at the University of Alberta recently announced a partial solution, which is enough to prove that checkers is a draw with perfect play from the initial position. This is an interesting result, so I'd like to discuss it in detail and compare the task of solving checkers with solving backgammon. I'll also mention some recent results in poker, and the past result of solving hypergammon
 

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