Awari Oracle
From Wikinfo
The Awari Oracle is a public Java applet, which perfectly plays Awari, a close variant of Oware (a mancala game). The program was developped by John Romein at the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2002. It computes the best move and eventual outcome for all 889,063,398,406 positions that can possibly occur in a game from a 778 gigabyte large database, which was created by John Romein and Henri Bal. They solved the game on a large computer cluster, using a new parallel search algorithm, which needed just 51 hours for its calculations.
The Awari Oracle has two modes: "game mode" and "edit mode".
The game mode can be used for playing a game against the applet. A perfect game will end in a draw.
The edit mode can be used for analyzing particular positions.
The Awari Oracle was used to test Oware programs such as the Oware Wizard. The Catalan Oware expert Víktor Bautista de Roca showed with its help that more than 95% of all moves made in a game played between Antiguan Oware grandmaster Trevor Simon and Ibrahim Abubakar, the World Champion from Ghana, were perfect according to the Oracle. However, a final conclusion cannot be drawn as the data is based on rules, which slightly differ from Oware.
These differences are:
- A position that is repeated for the third time results in a even division of the remaining stones, including a possible odd stone.
- It is not allowed to do a move that leaves the opponent without countermove, unless all moves eradicate the opponent.
The first rule is not used in any Oware variant played by humans. The second rule is used in some Oware variants, but not in tournaments. The international rules (abapa) permit a player to do such a move, but then he captures nothing.
External Links
References
- Donkers, J.
- Comments on the Awari Solution. In: ICGA Journal 2002; 25 (3).
- Romein, J. W. & Bal, H. E.
- Awari is solved. In: ICGA Journal 2002; 25 (3).
- Romein, J. W. & Bal, H. E.
- Solving the Game of Awari using Parallel Retrograde Analysis. In: IEEE Computer 2003; 36 (10): 26-33.
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By: Ralf Gering.
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