Subject: Re: alpha-beta

From: [email-masked] (Peter Tax)
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 16:17:27 +0200

Hello,

>>This seems to give reasonable behavior (at least against my meager
>>abilities), although it can be overly defensive at times. I have

In an earlier reply about this, ant wrote:

>I think that for game trees the size of abalone ones an evaluation
>function based on more information should be used. The fact that (some)
>abalone programs play overly defensive is in my opinion due to a game
>design flaw; I should not be possible for a player to be able to block
>all progress. Although I have never seen a proof of this assumption it
>still looks intuitively true (no good reason, I know).

I think it is theoretically impossible to block ALL progress.
To do this, you'd need a block of marbles that is three deep in all
directions, so that would at least be a hexagonal block with sides
of length three. That's 3 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 3 > 14 marbles, so you can't.
In practice, I must agree an overly defensive strategy gets boring.

I do believe, however, a positional strategy is not necessarily boring.
This depends on the values you choose.
---
[email-masked] (Peter Tax)

? LOOK
You are in a brighly lit room. There is a screen device in front of you.
North and East are doors. There is a manager behind you.
? N
The door is locked.
? _