As we return from a long weekend and games of Team Sorry! with those closest to us, it is important to remember the people who have given the most to the game. This is the first of Tabletalk's retrospective on those who have improved Team Sorry! for everyone. Our first installment will focus on Sorry! visionary Alvus Middington.

If he were not tragically stolen from us, last Thursday would have been Alvus Middington's 100th birthday. Alvus, for those who are new to the game, invented the 11-chip in 1962.


(above: Avus in an undated photo)

When the first computers that ran on vacuum tubes were built, one of the first tasks they were put to was Team Sorry! game theory. Scientists of the era were fascinated with the idea of a machine that could play Sorry!

"There's no reason that every house can't have a Team Sorry! playing machine of their own by the end of the decade. These machines, which may be as small as a large car, could run millions of calculations a second and substitute itself for one player so that 3 people can play Team Sorry!, even if a fourth isn't available. We suspect the wealthy will purchase two of them for the home, so they can play with only two people."
~Popular Science, May 1955.

There was one problem - the machine could not run the calculations neccesary to compute proper 11 use. 11's, as all readers of TableTalk know, allow you to move foward 11 spaces or switch spaces with any other pawn on the board. This increases the number of possible plays exponentially. The calculations caused the machine to beep furiously, shoot out black smoke, and eventually explode. Scientists in lab coats took the functionality out of the machine, figuring that an artificial intelligence who could play a perfect game of Team Sorry! with the other eleven cards was good enough.

They were wrong. The machine was a total disaster and it's biggest manufacturer, Sorry!Netics went out of business almost immediately.

The idea of a robot that could play Sorry! fascinated a young computer engineer named Alvus. Dissapointed with modern Team Sorry! technology, he worked tierlessly in his parents basement for years perfecting a model for artificial intelligence capable of using an 11.

Then, one day, he did it. Since his journal is written in code, nobody is quite sure how his discovery came about but Alvus had perfected a machine capable of using every card in a standard Sorry! deck. Of course it seemed the market was not ready for Alvus' invention and his company, Sorry!telligence went belly up in under three months. Alvus was shocked. He took what little money he had, three of his most advanced and succesfull Sorry! playing robots, and lived the rest of his life as a hermit. He refused all requests for interviews until his death in 1973.

Alvus' work is still used today in a wide variety of Sorry! products today - from the Talking Sorry! card revenge game all the way to Sorry! for the Gameboy Advance.

Alvus, we at Tabletalk salute you.

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