A Study of Forward Versus Backwards Endgame Solvers with Results in Chinese Checkers

Nathan R. Sturtevant, Abdallah Saffidine

Abstract: When writing an endgame solver that uses retrograde analysis, there are many significant choices that can be made about how to implement the solver. While significant work has been done on building solvers for many games, including Chess and Checkers, we were surprised to find that there has not been a comprehensive study identifying the choice of solver enhancements. This paper represents preliminary work in this direction, exploring several types of forward and backwards solvers, and reporting preliminary results on small versions of Chinese Checkers.