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From: chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women
Subject: Re: Win/Win Players vs. Win/Lose Players
Message-ID: <536@mordred.purdue.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Mar-86 14:58:25 EST
Article-I.D.: mordred.536
Posted: Thu Mar 20 14:58:25 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 14:16:33 EST
References: <1270@decwrl.DEC.COM> <439@ccivax.UUCP> <12@umcp-cs.UUCP> <10844@amdcad.UUCP>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 15
Xref: watmath net.singles:11093 net.women:9811
Summary: Scientific American article

The article in Scientific American about "tit for tat" beating other
strategies was one of Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" columns.
(If you're interested, the column and some followup material appears in
his book _Metamagical_Themas_.)

What I wanted to point out is that "playing nice" like "tit for tat" does
is not always the best strategy.  In a replay of the computer simulation
with different (sometimes more complicated) strategies, "tit for tat" did
not win - a program that "probed" its opponents to see their reactions
did better.  The conclusion is that no one strategy is best.  Your reactions
should be based on your environment.  (For the win/win players out there
I should point out that not attacking until provoked does seem a robust
strategy, i.e. it does well in most environments.)

							Chuck