By Neto Baptiste
International Oware Grand Master and former world champion, Trevor Simon, has added another accolade to his already long list of achievements after he recorded the best score that a human has ever played against the 48Stones database, a super computer designed to be unbeatable by even the best warri players in the world.
Simon, in December, was invited by the game’s developer, Xavier Blanvillan, to pit his skills against the “unbeatable” system and the Antiguan was beaten by just two seeds with the game ending 23-25.
Speaking on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show, Simon said he made one wrong move which may have cost him the game.
“That particular game, I put on a switch on the computer that I thought would have won me the game, and most times when you’re playing master players against master players or grandmasters against grandmasters, 99 percent of the game comes down to how you execute your end-game. I made one error towards the end; as you said, it was 92 percent of the time that I held the computer to over 100 moves which was tight going down the line, but that one mistake I made, it took the advantage,” he said.
According to a report on the game, Simon displayed his mastery by staying in control of the game 91 percent of the time.
The Antiguan said that having come so close to achieving a draw against the 48Stones database has opened his appetite for more.
“We want to get some more master players from Antigua because I don’t want to be the only one to play against the computer, so they told me to organize a few grandmaster players from Antigua. So, we are in the process of putting that together and then we will get back to Branville to find out when he will be ready for us to have a trial against the computer again,” Simon said.
The Grandmaster endorsed the game as one of the most challenging he has ever played.
“It’s a situation where they have developed the game to a point where it cannot be beaten by man and the most you could do is to draw a game. Although I have my doubts about that theory, so far, playing against the computer I think it’s the best programme I’ve seen out there because most of the other programmes I’ve played against before they are very weak in the end game; but this is not the case with this computer,” Simon said.
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 have taken place as part of the validation process.