Today in the neverending battle between man and machine, machine wins again. Programmers at the University of Alberta have shown that Chinook, a computer program they created, can beat any opponent in checkers — or at least score a draw. We're a little surprised that this is news, as any electronic checkers game set to "advanced" has beaten us soundly for years. But it turns out that an earlier incarnation of Chinook actually lost to a real opponent, Dr. Marion Tinsley, in 1992. The new, improved Chinook, has been proved unbeatable mathematically, though unfortunately Dr. Tinsley is no longer around to compete with it.

Next, the programmers hope to tackle poker. As for chess, according to , the paper's lead author, "Checkers has roughly the square root of the number of positions in chess." He estimates that the game won't be "solved" anytime soon. — S.E. Kramer

Chinook, via CNN