Checkers (WCC Lite) Description

[Info-Mac]

Download: http://archive.info-mac.org/game/brd/wo ... s-lite.hqx

The graphic in this program are amazing, the play is superior to every
other checkes program on the market, and the program is free. The download
is defintely
worth it!

World Championship Checkers (WCC) describes a suite of products. They are
the most advanced software programs to play the game of checkers (or
"draughts" to our friends across the Atlantic) that you can obtain. This
"lite" version is bundled with:
* An Opening Book containing more than 200,000 positions.
* A RAM-resident database containing more than 148 million positions.
* A disk-based "Perfect Play" database with over 7 million positions.
* An engine that searches 12-18 plies ahead (you set the depth.)

This version is "visit-ware". If you like it, all that we ask is that
you stop by our website at http://www.InfiniteLoop.org sometime and take a
look around. We have much stronger versions for sale; one that has beaten the
human world champion many times.
Opening Book

The Opening Book contains an abundance of the strongest moves ever made by
some of the most brilliant players ever to have lived. In this sense, you are
playing not just WCC™ Lite, but every one of those
considered to be the Greatest Masters of All-Time! Some of our book play
predates the birth of the United States of America, taken from a volume
published in 1756!

If you play a move that is in the book, aggressively counterplay and deadly
traps are instantly available. Sometimes WCC™ will make a move that
intentionally throws away a checker, or maybe even two checkers, but a few
moves later, you find yourself being triple-jumped as a piece lands in the
King row!
If you play a move that is not in the book, WCC™ will seach every position
between 12-18 plies into the future in order to determine its best move.

RAM Database of 148 Million Positions+


WCC™ has two kinds of endgame database. One exists in RAM, and is probed as
the look-ahead search encounters positions. This one has every position
involving 5 or fewer pieces mapped to a win, loss, or draw.


Since pieces come off the board "no matter what", WCC™ can probe ahead and
avoid the losses in its database, play for wins, and if it is in any kind of
trouble, it will head for a draw. It takes a very strong player to defeat
this version of WCC™ Lite.

Disk Database of 7 Million Positions+


The RAM Database is great for avoiding losses and finding wins from a
great distance as the program conducts it search. However, once there are 5
or fewer pieces on the board, this database does not provide any information
about what "THE best" move is. The program would have to continue searching,
since only the bland result "win, loss, draw" is stored in the database.This
is where the disk-based "Perfect Play" database becomes a dominating factor.
WCC™ Lite has every position with 4 or fewer pieces resolved, and it only
needs to look into this database to find out the optimal move, without ever
needing to search!

The longest win with 4 pieces features 2 checkers against 2 checkers and it
requires 109 plies (55 moves for the winner, 54 moves for the loser) in order
to complete the win! It would be impossible for a program to search to such a
depth!

There are versions of WCC™ on our website that have even larger Perfect Play
Databases. For example, the 5 Piece Perfect Play Database allows WCC™
Platinum Series 1 (there are 10 total Platinum versions) to announce a win in
157 plies! In fact, some older checkers literature thought a very similar
position was a draw, but WCC™ proved the books wrong.

So, whether you are a casual checker player looking for a challenge, or you
want to defeat your "internet rival" in online checkers, you will defintely
enjoy the program.