TIL that Checkers has been a solved game for almost 20 years. Optimal play is unbeatable, and two opponents playing optimally always reach a stalemate.

[u/PeasantLich]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231216842_Checkers_Is_Solved

[u/HotterRod]

From the Wikipedia article you link to:

There have long been controversies concerning imbalance of the game, as rules for certain modern tafl games strongly favor the defenders. This imbalance results from a mistranslation of Linnaeus' rules for tablut, a Sámi tafl game from the 1700s, which were subsequently used as the basis for reconstructions of rules for medieval tafl. Newer translations of Linnaeus' tablut rules reveal a balanced game. After this change, tablut can be said to be slightly in favor of the attackers rather than the defenders: according to statistics, the attackers overall win marginally more often (on average 9% more).

[u/yodatsracist → u/HotterRod]

This is what Wikipedia says, but I think you're understanding what this number means. It's easy to do. Wikipedia is not written in a very clear way.

The first thing to understand is that not all versions of the game are based directly or indirectly on Linnaeus's rules for Tablut (yes, he's the same guy who invented binomial nomenclature so that every living thing has a two part Latin name Homo sapiens, Canis lupus, E. coli, Cannabis indica, etc. — you have to love how 18th and 19th century polymaths find themsleves in random places). So how that version is balanced isn't the end-all, be-all of Tafl game balance. I don't think it's close to the most popular today, anyway.

Second, there are a lot variants, with difference numbers of pieces, rules, board sizes, and configurations. Linnaeus's Tablut, for example, was played on a 9x9 board. Board sizes range from at least 5x5 to 13x13, to give you a sense. I think a lot of the most popular standard variants are on an 11x11 board, though some of the most popular are played on 3x(something) boards. These 3x(something) games are from the Daldos and Sahkku sub families of Tafl games, which I have never played.

Not all of these variants have the same balance, but White (defense) is consistently advantaged in actual observed outcomes. You can see balance statistics that someone obsessively collected for fifty-eight different variants here. You can see that White (defense) has an advantage in most of these variants, I think it's like 36/58 favor white in terms of variants, 2 were statistically balanced, and so means Black (attackers) are only favored in about 1/3 of games. Of the 58 variants, only 17 (again about 1/3) have average scores that give a 10% win or less to one side of the other. Which is to say, most of them are more unbalanced.

What seem to be the most popular variants (that is, the ones in this data set with more than 1,000 games played) are Copenhagen Hnefatafl 11x11; Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11; Berserk Hnefatafl 11x11 (Nielsen setup); Daldos 3x12; Daldos 3x16; Daldos 3x14; Old Hnefatafl 11x11; and Saami Sáhkku 3x15 (Kåfjord). The average balance ratings for these are +1.30, +1.43, +1.16, +1.08, +1.07, -1.01, +1.05, -1.13. So once again, like I said, most of the most popular variants favor defense (positive numbers) and some favor defense by a lot, on average. The average of the absolute values of the balance rating of these eight most popular variants is 1.15, which I think means that, roughly on average, for every twenty games one side wins, the other side is winning twenty-three. It's not ridiculously out of balance, you might not notice it if you played a few times, but it is consistently out of balance. You may notice that the variants that give more balanced overall numbers are often slightly tilted toward one side for beginners and slightly tilted toward the other side for experienced players. So even these are balanced across all players levels, but they may not be that balanced at any specific player level.

[u/TehSteak → u/yodatsracist]

How did you come to learn so much about this stuff?

[u/yodatsracist → u/TehSteak]

I bought the game randomly in 1997 as "the Viking Game" at some English Heritage-run museum when I was in 6th grade because it looked cool. I played it with my family for a few years but then didn't play it much for about three decades. Last year, I had a lot of fun playing with my nephews, so I just spent a few evenings reading about it. Nothing special, just Wikipedia and that website that has statistics on it and so much more AageNielsen.dk, and maybe a couple other links.