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Backgammon Books
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Learning from the Machine
Bill Robertie versus TD-Gammon
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AUTHOR:
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Bill Robertie
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YEAR:
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1993
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PUBLISHER:
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The Gammon Press
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CITY:
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Arlington, MA
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BINDING:
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Softcover, staple-bound
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PAGES:
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51
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SIZE:
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28 cm high, 21 cm wide
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DESCRIPTION:
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TD-Gammon is a backgammon-playing computer program developed in the early 1990's by Gerald Tesauro of IBM's Watson Research Center. It was the first famous example of a backgammon program that used artificial neural network technology. The program trained itself to be an evaluation function for the game of backgammon by playing 300,000 games against itself and learning from the outcome. Tesauro describes this effort in the article Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon, first published in the March 1995 issue of Communications of the ACM.
To help evaluate the playing strength of TD-Gammon, Tesauro challenged former World Champion Bill Robertie to a 31-game match in October of 1991. TD-Gammon and Robertie played most of a day. Robertie's estimate, after reviewing the entire session, was that an expert player such as Robertie would do well to average 0.20 to 0.25 points per game. This would make TD-Gammon the strongest backgammon-playing program up to that point.
Robertie writes: "Not only is TD-Gammon interesting as a backgammon program, it represents an astonishing achievement for the neural network approach to artificial intelligence. Remember that this program has no human knowledge built into it. Everything it knows, it deduced by playing against itself, then modifying its approach after each game."
Learning from the Machine is a transcript of that match, lightly annotated by Robertie.
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READERS
COMMENTS:
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"An annotated series of matches between Robertie and TD-Gammon, played when TD was still in its learning process. Plenty of useful comments from Robertie, but not much from TD. It would be nice to have its evaluation of the equities more often, especially at cube decisions. Otherwise some very interesting matches, with TD occasionally producing new plays (some good and some bad)."—Tim Wilkins
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CONTENTS:
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Match Summary
Introduction
Games 1-31
About the Gammon Press
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BY THE SAME
AUTHOR:
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Lee Genud Vs Joe Dwek
The 1981 World Championship of Backgammon
Bill Robertie
1982: William Robertie, Arlington, MA
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Advanced Backgammon
Bill Robertie
1984: William Robertie, Arlinton, MA
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Reno 1986
Bill Robertie
1987: William Robertie, Arlington, MA
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Advanced Backgammon, Volume 1
Positional Play
Second Edition
Bill Robertie
1991: The Gammon Press, Arlington, MA
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Advanced Backgammon, Volume 2
Technical Play
Second Edition
Bill Robertie
1991: The Gammon Press, Arlington, MA
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Backgammon for Winners
Bill Robertie
1993: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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Backgammon for Winners
Second Edition
Bill Robertie
1995: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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Backgammon for Serious Players
Tips from the World's Best Player
Bill Robertie
1997: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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501 Essential Backgammon Problems
Bill Robertie
2000: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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Modern Backgammon
Bill Robertie
2001: The Gammon Press, Arlington, MA
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Backgammon for Winners
Third Edition
Bill Robertie
2002: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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Backgammon for Serious Players
Strategies from a World Champion
Second Edition
Bill Robertie
2003: Cardoza Publishing, New York, NY
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