Checker Reviews

An absorbing and enchanting tale of a personal quest for the deeper meaning of AI: the discovery of how intelligence itself arises. Fogel seizes the challenge by capturing the evolutionary process and shaping it to breed a checkers expert from an artificial neural net. Scientists, humanists, and artists will appreciate his inspiring wit and clarity of thought in narrating the growth of Blondie24, a synthetic sentience born inside a desktop PC.

David has written an important and influential book. Not only is the discussion of Blondie24, the cute checker playing heroine of the book, a lively romp through the ins and outs of evolutionary programming but it lays the stage for David's more serious and far reaching discussion of what is right and wrong in our quest for a companion intelligence. It is this aspect of the book - David Fogel's keen insights into the meaning of machine intelligence and the ways in which we might grow and nurture our thinking machine of the very near future that I found the most arresting and thought provoking. In David's world view the AI community, by and large, has completely missed the boat - our current attempts to create intelligent machines by programming them to think is futile and, at the very least, misguided. Making short work of neural networks and chess playing programs, David uses the seeming simple but ultimately powerful example of Blondie24, a program that learns how to play checkers from pure trail and error - learning from experience in a process very similar to our own way of learning - to illustrate the power and range of possibilities in evolutionary programming.

This book is well written, easy (and , in fact, fun) to read and touches on topics that make it an important and necessary book for every intelligent reader in today's world of the internet and ever more powerful computers. I am impressed with David's well thought out observations on the role of evolutionary programming not only in the workings of Blondie24 but also as the core technology for the next generation of thinking machines. As the Chief Executive Officer of Natural Selection, Inc. David's views are more than academic musings, they are an important part of his company's business. Positioning himself as a new Darwin of evolutionary intelligence, this book - along with his previous book Evolutionary Computation - Toward a New Philosophy of Machine Intelligence -- places Dr. Fogel as the leading exponent of this rapidly emerging paradigm in machine intelligence.

While an absolutely must read for all of us in the Artificial Intelligence field, this is a book for any curious reader who is interested in how (and perhaps when) the thinking machines of the near future will come about. And, of course, Blondie24 is a smart, intelligent creature whose attempts to divine the workings of the checker board are fun to follow and satisfying to share.

David has written an important and influential book. Not only is the discussion of Blondie24, the cute checker playing heroine of the book, a lively romp through the ins and outs of evolutionary programming but it lays the stage for David's more serious and far reaching discussion of what is right and wrong in our quest for a companion intelligence. It is this aspect of the book - David Fogel's keen insights into the meaning of machine intelligence and the ways in which we might grow and nurture our thinking machine of the very near future that I found the most arresting and thought provoking. In David's world view the AI community, by and large, has completely missed the boat - our current attempts to create intelligent machines by programming them to think is futile and, at the very least, misguided. Making short work of neural networks and chess playing programs, David uses the seeming simple but ultimately powerful example of Blondie24, a program that learns how to play checkers from pure trail and error - learning from experience in a process very similar to our own way of learning - to illustrate the power and range of possibilities in evolutionary programming.

This book is well written, easy (and , in fact, fun) to read and touches on topics that make it an important and necessary book for every intelligent reader in today's world of the internet and ever more powerful computers. I am impressed with David's well thought out observations on the role of evolutionary programming not only in the workings of Blondie24 but also as the core technology for the next generation of thinking machines. As the Chief Executive Officer of Natural Selection, Inc. David's views are more than academic musings, they are an important part of his company's business. Positioning himself as a new Darwin of evolutionary intelligence, this book - along with his previous book "Evolutionary Computation - Toward a New Philosophy of Machine Intelligence" - places Dr. Fogel as the leading exponent of this rapidly emerging paradigm in machine intelligence.

While an absolutely must read for all of us in the Artificial Intelligence field, this is a book for any curious reader who is interested in how (and perhaps when) the thinking machines of the near future will come about. And, of course, Blondie24 is a smart, intelligent creature whose attempts to divine the workings of the checker board are fun to follow and satisfying to share.

I thought the checklist was great. It gave me everything I needed to know about Patricia Cornwell's books

My Mom just asked me to print out a list of Patricia Cornwell's books - we are forever buying and exchanging her books only to find out the other has bought/read/owns it already - this is the PERFECT Christmas gift for any avid PC fan....

This is a great way to keep track of which of her books you've read. I was forever returning books I bought, not remembering if I'd read them or not, and now I just carry this and save a lot of time!

This book is the highest quality, best organized, and most thorough book on the market for beginner to intermediate study. It amounts to a complete course in checkers.

The book contains material about all facets of the game, presented in careful order, with good illustrations and other excellent learning devices (such as easy-to-remember names for various game themes). The book offers a very rare combination of accessibility for casual browsing when time is limited, and material for serious study over a more extended period. But obviously to benefit the most, a serious study of the complete book is in order. Mastering this book, in fact, should put you well ahead of the average club player, and in a good position for study of more advanced literature.

The book treats openings a bit lightly, keeping the rating from just quite reaching five stars. Four and a half stars would actually be a better call.

If your library includes this book, Reinfeld's book, and Pike's two puzzle books, you have a great checkers collection at a very modest cost.

Don't let the title of the book fool you. This book is packed with all the key elements needed to become quite effecient at playing checkers with the best of them. It gets right to the point, and reveals the strategy of the game in a clear, consise
manner. There are lots of examples, and you know from the content, that the game has been covered in a logical manner.

Every player has learned, mostly through trial and error, which game postions cause them the most difficulty. Thanks to Richard Pask, the problems and solutions are presented in a format which is easy for you to comprehend and study. This has saved me many hours of trial and error when playing real games.

I would recommend this book to anyone trying to improve thier game. The insight gained was invaluable. Checkers is truly a game of challenge, and this book just opened the door for me to be sitting in the winning seat more often.

I have completed a first reading of all the material in this book and I am now involved in studying it more deeply. Already I can say that this is a fantastic book, with everything you need to get started and to reach an advanced level if you are serious about wanting to get good at checkers.

Some sample pages that I previously saw on the web were extremely unrepresentative of the book and they put me off buying it - but then I saw it in a bookstore - and I changed my mind!

What I particularly like about the book is the way that all the major elements of the endgame, midgame and openings are dealt with in a very systematic, methodical and thorough way. Many more key situations are dealt with (and given memorable names) than I have seen in any other book or website.

The explanations and also very clear and the examples well chosen.

Study methods and the general approach to the game are also discussed as well as the technical details. Each chapter also has a useful summary.

For the sake of this review, I looked hard for something to criticise - sorry, I couldn't find anything! Enjoy.

I am new to the collecting world of boyds bears. I saw this book at a store that mainly sold boyds bears. This book was very helpful in showing me what bear was of value etc. They have a handy reference guide in the back of the book that helps you find the bear you are looking for by name. Its great!

This guide is the best as far as I'm concerned I depend on this for my collection and my bids for auctions. The pictures are very lifelike, this guide is very informational. This guide is as close to complete as I've seen. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in collecting Boyd's Bears.

Yike! Sure hope I'm the only one at the Old Fogies Senior Center with this book.I'll be the champ in no time.

The 370 puzzles in this book will keep you occupied for some time and will greatly improve your play. Do yourself a favor and work through each one carefully, resorting to the solutions only if you are absolutely desperate. Most of these can be solved mentally, but in some cases the use of board and pieces will make the concepts more clear. The small pocket size format of the book makes it very good to take along and use during down-time such as waiting for doctors appointments and the like. The serious student of checkers really ought to have this book.

This is a horrible series with information that becomes outdated very quickly. Save your money and buy Beanie Babies, instead.

I bought this book two weeks ago and I know almost everything about ty beanie babies that I need too. It is ideal forany collector of those cuddly little beanbags. The book has a price list of all the beanies and even comes with a free pocket planner and collector cards inside.I love this book, I hope that you will like it as much as I do!

This book has it all, tag generations for every beanie, prices, poems next to pictures and much more. I love the changes they have made to this book: Only 2 beanies per page instead of 3, poem on same page as beanie, it says what tags go with what beanies and the values for each all in the same place as the pictured beanie. Highly recommend for those of you who need a little reminder when purchasing beanies: Heck.....every beanie collector in their right and wrong minds should have this. I take it everywhere!!!! Only thing is I wished they had all the pillow pals in the book again....oh well can't win them all!

I found this book to be a very good introduction to checkers. It covers, in depth, sacrifices (pitches) to set up two-for-one exchanges, and the "five positions" that most commonly occur in the endgame. The analysis of openings is thorough, and a major plus for me was the section on forcing draws from "losing" positions. Only two things stopped me from ranking this book at 5 stars - the pictures of the boards are just too big, and are sometimes two pages back from where the written analysis takes place. Also some sample historic games would have been nice. The author has used an appendix to describe different versions of checkers around the world and this is, frankly, useless. That space could have been better used by a couple of analysed historic games. Other than these minor peeves, it is an excellent book. I would not hesitate to recommend it to a checkers enthusiast from beginner to intermediate level.

Reinfield's book is a must for the serious checker player. He covers various situations, openings and endgames, and provides the reader situation problems to solve on his/her own. My game was improved by reading this book.

Reinfeld has truly excelled in this book about checkers. This is the most complete book on checkers you will ever find, in or out of print.

The book covers tactics such as traps and shots and then goes on to cover just about every important opening to at least some degree, often with main-lines and numerous variations. Finally, the section on endings is quite complete; nowhere else can I find the four kings vs. three situation covered.

Whenever I have a question I turn first to this book and almost always find an answer.

Be aware that information is packed tightly into every page and you will need to study each situation carefully, playing through the variations on a second board. For instance, opening variations are often contained in a few lines of commentary; you will lose out if you don't pay attention to these variations. It is clearly not a book for dabblers, but one which requires substantial effort, which will be well rewarded.

This book does not get a lot of attention from the experts, perhaps because of Reinfeld's so-so reputation as a chess writer. In fact this book is a must-have for serious beginners and intermediates. If you combine this with The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Checker Puzzles you have enough study material for months, and your game will improve rapidly.

(Don't be put off by the cover photo, which is full of errors and serves to trivialize and stereotype the game of checkers. The contents are what matters.)

This book is a beautiful book as far as the pictures go and it does have all the lines and styles in one book, but the price guide is very limited. It doesn't break down the generation of the shoes, ie: Thailand or China, shoe box colors (a collector's item in themselves), or oddities and their value as most are rare. This publisher should use the similar guidelines of their Beanie Baby Collectors Guide and break down the generations or in this case production generations, and it's varities. As it stands now, it is just a catalog.

I'm not the shoe collector... the wife is so I bought her this guide. She loves it, which ends up costing me more money, 'cause now she wants more shoes.

Considering this is the only book in the market for the JTRS collection, it contains mostly everything you would need to complete your collection. All of Raine's shoes, up to the end of 2000, are included in this book along with her Take A Seat collection. There are brief descriptions for each shoe and the suggested retail price with a place for you to enter the price you paid for each piece. There is an interview with Raine as well as a brief history about the shoe collection. Keep in mind that since this collection is rather new, the market value information will be limited.

It is odd that no one else has noted this. But this book is specific to pool checkers, even though he calls the game American Checkers throughout and has separate books with the name Pool Checkers in the title. Key differences between regular, ACF checkers and Pool checkers: (1) regular pieces can capture both backwards and forwards in pool checkers, but only forward in regular checkers; and (2) kings in pool checkers can move any number of squares along a diagonal; in regular checkers, kings can move only one square backwards and forwards.

If you don't play pool checkers, this book is not for you.

A very useful book to understand how translate a postion in a winning position(if it's possible). You can learn to understand how implement your idea to try to win a match. At the same time you learn to avoid not strong positions. A very beautiful book.

Vladimir Kaplan`s second masterpiece "The Key to Sucess of American Checkers" is a must-reed for anyone seeking to understand checker law. The principles of play are worked in different types of position. There is an invaluable chapter about the complicated strategy of center encirclement.. This book helped move my skill at checkers to completely new heghts.

If you know little about "real" checkers this is the book to get you started. It is entertaining and witty and helps you learn conceptual thinking about the game. It covers tactics ("pitches" and "shots") and important endgame positions. I didn't rate it 5 stars because it is really light on opening play; you'll need another book such as Reinfeld's for that. The book is inexpensive yet contains hours of useful instruction. If you've played on-line, stared at the board and wondered "what next" or if you're losing because of blunders, this is THE book to read first.

Hopper's book is one of-if not the-best available for the player who wants to become" a pretty good" player. It contains basic information about the the game that will take you a step above the average player. For example ,there are several common techniques for pulling off two for one and two for three jumps. After finishing the book--and practicing a little-- you will be a better player and have a better understanding of this much misunderstood game. It's a rare book: good and cheap

I began playing checkers at YAHOO a few months ago. Got killed. When I was a young boy (48 now) I remember getting beat at checkers by my older sisters to the point where I would get so angry that I'd throw the board across the room during the game. And so, once again I was getting stomped by 15 year old Austrailians. I read this book. And re-read it. And studied it. Now I WIN most of the time. It's a very fast way to become a good intermediate player. Buy it!