Human vs Computer, Mark II

The first Human vs Computer Showdown took place in 2006 and provoked great interest in the media. Now a second showdown has been organised to coincide with the Toronto International Scrabble Open in September.

During the course of the 26-round tournament, each entrant will be paired with bots during two rounds. Two leading Scrabble-playing programs, Maven and Quackle, have been invited to compete.

Event organiser Tony Leah says the computer players will have human assistants to draw tiles, place plays on the board and operate the clock. "After 26 rounds, one computer player and one human player will be left standing: the human winner of the TISO and the computer player with the best record against humans. they will then play a best-of-four final series."

Moves will be both covered live on the internet and relayed to an observation room — just like in major human-vs-human events, says Leah. The human winner will win the TISO first prize, and the owner of the computer program will get a cash prize. For more details of the tournament see the Schedule page.

April 2011