History
The game was given wide dissemination and positive publicity by its inclusion in Sid Sackson's book A Gamut of Games (1969), but for many years no stable playing community developed to explore the strategy to any depth. Only starting in the 1990s has any deep understanding of the game evolved.
In the last few years, not only has the play of the best humans risen dramatically, but simultaneously excellent computer programs have emerged. The level of play is improving both among humans and computers, but for the present the strongest LOA-playing entity in the world is the program MIA. MIA took first place in the 8th Computer Olympiad (2003), 9th Computer Olympiad (2004) and 11th Computer Olympiad (2006).
The best human players are probably Jorge Gómez Arrausi and Gianfranco Buccoliero (winner of the largest loa tournament to date). Jorge has played competitive games against top computer programs, but has not been triumphant in recent matches.
Claude Soucie, the inventor of LOA, died just as his game was beginning to reach a critical mass of interest. Some of the finer points of the rules are just now being standardized, without the benefit of appeal to Soucie. In all situations which were discussed by Sackson, his presentation is now generally accepted as authoritative.
Lines of Action inspired Sid Sackson to develop another game, entitled Fields of Action.
Read more about this topic: Lines Of Action
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)