Subject: Ablone strategies

From: [email-masked] (Peter Tax)
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 93 09:56:41 +0200

Hello there,

I'm new on this newsgroup. I found out about this newsgroup via the
Random Game competition. I tried to compete in this competition, but
this failed since the program I wrote was Macintosh program, and they
could not run it. This was quite unsatisfactory; I still don't know how
strong the program I wrote is compared to other programs.
Is there anyone else in this group who made an Abalone program running
on the Macintosh, or under a standard C environment? If so, I'd like to
let our programs play against each other.
Also, I guess there must have been going on some discussion about
strategy in this newsgroup. Could someone update me on this subject?
I found out some general criteria you can base a strategy upon:
1) distance from the edge
2) connectivity
3) the number of legal moves.
   (this probably can't be implemented efficiently)
Are there any other agreed-upon general criteria for a stong Abalone
playing strategy?
---
[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.
? _

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 93 15:40:05 +0200

>let our programs play against each other.

I'll try to release compalone as soon as possible.

>strategy in this newsgroup. Could someone update me on this subject?

You're overestimating this list. Anyway, now you've started it. 
Problem: if you disclose everything about your prog and it contains
a novel strategy then others will include it if your prog is better than
theirs. Still it's good that we discuss it here.

>1) distance from the edge

Yes, but. If you overstress this strategy programs tend to play boring.

>2) connectivity

Yes. Very important in my prog.

>3) the number of legal moves.

I took that out. Freedom does not seem to be a problem in abalone.

>Are there any other agreed-upon general criteria for a stong Abalone

Well, I think you forgot the most obvious one: # of marbles still on the
board (called area in Compalone).

Actually the main parameter for success in abalone seems to be the
choice of the algorithm. The prog from the MIT uses conspiracy search.
To use this algo you have to build the search tree in mem. Kinda bad for
PCs (and MACs) methinks. But search control (time and space) is a
breeze. I still use dumb alpha-beta but I have a list of algos to try
stashed somewhere. Unfortunately it's very hard to try to see the
advantages of the different algos without running a great many tests
(preferably automatic ones). 

If I see things correctly the main problem of people in this group is
time. Seems that most of us got jobs somewhere (even in the university
environement jobs seem to mean work sometimes).

Cheers
	- ant