Quantum Checkers: The Development and Analysis of a Quantum Combinatorial Game
Abstract
This paper develops and analyses a novel quantum combinatorial game: quantum checkers (codenamed Cheqqers). The concepts of superposition, entanglement, measurements and interference from quantum mechanics are integrated into the game of checkers by adding new types of legal moves. The addition of these new rules is done gradually by introducing several levels of `quantumness'. Quantum checkers provides a framework for interpolating between a known and solved classical game and a more complex quantum game, and serves as 1) a benchmark for AI players learning to play quantum games and 2) an interesting game for human players that allows them to build intuition for quantum phenomena. We provide the initial analysis on the complexity of this game using random agents and a Monte Carlo tree search agent.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2506.05962,
title = {Quantum Checkers: The Development and Analysis of a Quantum Combinatorial Game},
author = {Marien Raat and Luuk van den Nouweland and Matthias Müller-Brockhausen and Mike Preuss and Evert van Nieuwenburg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.05962},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
8 pages, accepted to IEEE 2025 Conference on Games. In this version, added note to indicate equal contribution of Marien Raat and Luuk van den Nouweland