Big fish
Taki
Backgammon, the game that has replaced gin rummy as the hustler's delight, will take a step into the future this summer at the Philip Morris European Championship at Monte Carlo. That is when a `gammonoid' robot, with a backgammon board in place of a stomach and a computer in place of a brain, will play the European champion in a £2500 match.
The reason the prize money is nothing to write home about is that the robot is deemed too weak in comparison to today's hustlers. There is already a human computer called Paul Magriel, who looks like a humanoid, has a tongue sticking out of his mouth and makes a living writing a backgammon column for the New York Times. On the surface. In reality he spends his time relieving various pigeons of green paper. But we will get to that later. For the moment more about the gammonoid.
This is the invention of a Hans Berliner, head of research of the computer department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pitt sburgh. Berliner, for some inexplicable reason, has spent five years working on the project of feeding backgammon data to a computer. He says that 'backgammon is the best challenge to artificial intelligence of all intellectual pastimes'. Perhaps. I have not spent five years feeding data to my own computer but am nevertheless convinced that backgammon is the best challenge to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Maigret, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe put together. It is the only way crime can pay today. If you don't believe me take the case of Jean Noel Grinda, the ex-French tennis player, turned professional gambler. Grinda is always in the finals, semi-finals or winning these socalled backgammon tournaments.
These tournaments are actually organised as follows. Tobacco companies put up money, gentleman players like Louis de Yong do the promotion and journalists get a free trip to an exotic place to cover the event.
Then people like Grinda, Philip Martyn and the Lorenz brothers step in. Not to mention Americans like Magriel, Holland and some too ugly to write about. The art of playing backgammon, because it has reached the state of art, is such that a very good player, a humanoid that can figure out the odds, is a definite favourite over anyone unable to think 24 hours per day about odds etcetera. No matter how lucky the non 24 hour thinker is. Added to that is the fact that most pros play together in a chuette, that is they rotate partners, but in reality two oi them are permanent partners when it comes to splitting up the money later. One Is always a big winner while the other manages to break even.
As Grinda has won the Monte Carlo tournament many times he should once again be a hot favourite. If he wins he will play the gammonoid. The poor robot hasn't got a chance. Grinda's steeltraplike mind can outwit any computer when money is at stake. The professor who invented it will be in for a sad surprise. In order to give an example of how Grinda operates here is a brief example: Having made an enormous bet with an English gentleman over who would catch the biggest fish within an hour, Grinda proceeded to take the man out on his boat. Ten minutes after leaving harbour Grinda suddenly pulled out an enormous fish. The man almost fainted. The fish was the biggest he had ever seen around Nice waters. He tried vainly for about an hour and gave up. And paid. Needless to say, Grinda had stored the large fish in his boat's fridge and had surreptitiously thrown it overboard attached to his bait. Yes, the gammonoid will need more than his computer to win. And I will be there to tell you about it.
Previous page
