AAAI-97 Hall of Champions

AAAI-97 will include demonstrations of strong computer players of a variety of classic games of strategy. The games that have been selected are the following:

Date

7/29



7/30



7/31




Time

10:00
12:30
2:30

9:00
1:00
3:00

10:00




Game

Backgammon
Bridge
Checkers

Chess
Scrabble
Go

Othello

Connect-4
Go-moku
Program

TD-Gammon
GIB
Chinook

Rebel Chess
Maven
Handtalk

Logistello

Victor
Victoria
Author

Tesauro
Ginsberg
Schaeffer

Schroeder
Sheppard
Chen

Buro

Allis
Allis
Human opponent

Malcolm Davis
Meckstroth/Rodwell
Ron King

Gabriel Schwartzman
Adam Logan
Janice Kim

Tetsuya Nakajima

- solved -
- solved -

This is an educational exhibition, not a competition. The programs and humans participating in the Hall of Champions are all outstanding; each participant may or may not be the human or computer champion of the game. The persons or programs currently holding championships are determined by the governing organizations of the various games. Participation in the AAAI Hall of Champions has been determined primarily by excellence of play, but also by suitability for our educational mission and by the scheduling constraints of the event.

AAAI-97 attendees will be able to interact with these programs in a variety of ways. First, all of the programs will be available during the conference and attendees will be able to compete against them. Second, many of the programs' authors will be available to discuss both the technical issues involved in creating the programs and the social issues involved in introducing world-class computer players into tournament play. And finally, human experts in the unsolved games will be on hand to play a series of challenge matches against the programs themselves. The times of these challenge matches are included above, and the Hall of Champions will include a spectators' area where AAAI attendees can view these matches as they progress. There will also be a special panel on July 30 at 11:30 where both authors and human players discuss the fact that humans are being displaced as the world's best players in many of these games.

The Hall of Champions is being organized by Matthew L. Ginsberg. Comments and suggestions should be directed to him (ginsberg /at/ cirl.uoregon.edu).