On December 24, 2021, the Oware Grand Master Trevor Simon from Antigua & Barbuda played the best game that a human ever played against the 48Stones database, resulting in a score of 23-25. He matched the score achieved by Aalina, the Artificial Intelligence engine from Joan Sala. Trevor displayed his mastery by staying in control of the game 91% of the time, in game positions where one has to make the right move. Aalina had 35% control when it played against the database on April 17, 2021. The 48Stones database remains undefeated to date.
The game took place on the online gaming platform www.playok.com and lasted less than 20 minutes. Xavier Blanvillain played the moves that 48Stones was suggesting, as the database is not available to anybody for game ethical reasons. Trevor Simon managed to withstand the pressure from 48Stones for nearly 100 moves, especially when executing a remarkable krou capturing 11 seeds over 5 pits! It was an almost perfect game with just a single suboptimal move leading to 23-25. The game is published on the website: https://48stones.com/research-games-challenge/
The 48Stones database was built on January 23, 2021. It is a database of every possible move at all positions found in the Oware Abapa game. Since then a series of games took place as part of the validation process. Trevor Simon remarked that the database plays the endgames flawlessly and perfectly, which is usually the weakness of most Oware computer programs.
Do you think you can beat the 48Stones database or even reach a tie? The challenge will be open to the best Oware players, computer scientists, research universities and private companies. It will consist of a series of games that will be played on the platform www.playok.com. An invitation with all the conditions will be published shortly. Stay tuned!
We await further testing with other grandmaster players.