Games and tests

Simple logic and arcade games against the computer
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The shared score of every visitor: finished games only. how it is counted
Games
The bar under a game is who took how much at the strongest level. Under twenty finished games it stays empty: three games are nothing to read.
⚑3
Minesweeper
Clear the field. The mines fall at random: nobody is playing against you.
 ✕○✕
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Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe
Nine boards in one. The machine plays thousands of random games.
 2048
Evil 2048
Same merging, but the new tile is chosen to hurt you.
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Nim
Solved in 1901. The computer does not search here — it knows.
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Mancala
Sow the seeds, bank them, and steal the pit facing yours.
 □□
Dots and Boxes
Draw lines, close the boxes, take another turn for each one.
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Gomoku
Line up five in a row before the computer does.
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Chomp
Bite the bar, dodge the poison. Your win exists — go find it.
 123
Evil Threes
The next card is shown — and dealt against you.
 ⬢⬢
Hex
No draws, ever. Your side is proven to win — go find the win.
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Draughts
Russian draughts: captures are mandatory, kings fly.
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Reversi
The classic Othello: bracket enemy discs to flip them.
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Connect Four
Solved in 1988: the first player wins — if he plays it right.
 △▽
Sim
Six dots, two pencils. A draw is forbidden by mathematics.
 ⚅
Pig
Roll on or bank it. The machine knows the odds of every state.
 XO
Ataxx
Capture the board: clone your signs and convert the neighbours.
 |●|
Pong
The very first duel against a machine. First to 11.
 1234
Bulls and Cows
A duel of deduction: break the code before it breaks yours.
 🍉
Evil Suika
Merge the fruit. The dealer replays your every drop before choosing the next.
 K♥
Kuhn Poker
Three cards, one bet. Optimal play is a coin flip — and unbeatable.
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Battleship
Hunt down the enemy fleet before it finds yours.
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Nine Men's Morris
Close a mill of three, take an enemy piece off the board.
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Snake
Two snakes, one board, shared apples. Race it, cut it off, don't crash.
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Tron
Light cycles duel: box the computer in, don't hit the walls.
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Backgammon
Dice and judgement: race your checkers home.
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Evil Drop7
Count to explode. The next disc, and every hidden number, is chosen against you.
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Tic-Tac-Toe
Solved long ago: perfect play is a draw. Can you hold it against a perfect player?
 15
15 Puzzle
The computer finds the shortest solution at once. Can you come within the limit?
Tests
Short rounds. In most the machine holds a ruler; in three of them it answers your moves.
←→
Mind Reader
Press left or right at random. The machine will still call it.
 RED
Stroop Test
Name the ink, not the word. Reading starts without asking you.
 ●
Reaction
Wait for green and press. The machine needs half a millisecond.
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Find the Target
One red circle among many. Sometimes it finds you instead.
 7 3
Chimp Test
Numbers flash and vanish. A young chimp beats most adults here.
 7×8
Mental Arithmetic
Sixty seconds of sums against the thing built to do sums.
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Count the Dots
A flash of dots. Past four, you stop counting and start guessing.
 K?K
N-Back
Was this letter here N steps ago? Your queue is four items long.
 A|B
Spot the Machine
Two texts, one written in the machine's own handwriting.
 ◯
Reverse CAPTCHA
Pictures you read at a glance and software still fumbles.
Strategy guides
How to win, checked by a computer: every claim on these pages comes from a perfect solver or thousands of simulated games.
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Tic-Tac-Toe Strategy
The move order that never loses, and the traps that win.
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Connect Four Strategy
Why only the centre wins, the odd-even rule, and a line that beats Hard.
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Battleship Strategy
Find the fleet in fewer shots, and the layout that lasts longest.
 ⚑3
Minesweeper Strategy
Where to click first, four patterns, and how to guess well.
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Reversi Strategy
Corners, mobility, and fixed lines that beat Easy and Hard.
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Draughts Strategy
Shots, the big road, and a four-move trap for Easy.
 ▲▼
Backgammon Strategy
Opening rolls, blot odds, primes and the pip count.
Reference
Reading, not playing: how the machine got here, what it cost, and where the limits on both sides are.
✓
Solved Games
Which games have a known answer, who found it, and when.
 ██
Where the Line Runs
Every game in one row: is the answer known, and does a human still hold.
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When the Machine Took Over
Seventy years of games the human side stopped winning.
 4±1
The Limits of a Human
What the ten tests measure, where the ceiling is, and who measured it.
 10⁹
The Latency of a Thought
Measure your own latency in five flashes, then read it in the clock ticks of 123 processors.
 1→6
How Machines Learned to Play
Six steps from brute force to self-play. Each one began by giving something up.
 ⚔
Nine Matches
Backgammon, draughts, chess, Othello, Jeopardy!, Go, poker — a passport per match, with what each win cost and what it does not prove.
 r0b
Why CAPTCHA Stopped Working
A test built to be unpassable by machines, and what it quietly turned into.
 A–Z
Glossary
Ply, alpha-beta, evaluation function, subitizing — defined once each.
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The people
Who proved a game, who built the machine, and who was the champion.
 05
11
On this day
The calendar of the contest: what falls today and what is coming.
 +1
Days Since Humans Were Best
For each game, the count of days since the best human last won.
 OK✕
Dark Pattern Safari
A field guide to the interface tricks that work against you. Defanged.
 ⇅
The Moravec Paradox
The hard problems turned out easy for machines. The easy ones did not.
 «…»
The LLM Pavilion
A language model writes essays — and loses Connect Four. Genuine transcripts.