Apparently Jonathan Schaeffer, host of the annual AIIDE Conference (which I've unfortunately been too busy to attend for the last few years, despite serving in the Program Committee), has beaten checkers (addendum: you can read more about Chinook, or play it yourself, by clicking on this link).
Holy cow, that's awesome!
Congrats, Jonathan!
It's been a bit quiet around here lately ... I'm hoping to be able to contribute a bit more regularly once I'm done with some stuff I've been working on.