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From: mcewan@uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Followup to 'His was the most human
Message-ID: <24900128@uiucdcs>
Date: Sat, 15-Mar-86 18:27:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.24900128
Posted: Sat Mar 15 18:27:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Mar-86 11:00:14 EST
References: <1661@mtgzz.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:mtgzz.UUCP:1661:uiucdcs:24900128:000:1627
Nf-From: uiucdcs.CS.UIUC.EDU!mcewan    Mar 15 17:27:00 1986


>>> How about in Charlie X when Captain Kirk beats Spock. Spock says something
>>> like "Your illogical manner of playing chess sometimes has it's advantages".
>>
>>Hasn't anyone else noticed that this statement is idiotic? If Kirk won, how
>>can his play be described as "illogical"?
> 
> Have you ever played a game and tried to lose while the other player is
> playing normally?  I often do this when playing games against the
> computer, just for variety.  It's remarkable how well you can do when
> trying to do poorly.  The problem is that the other player makes
> decisions predicated on the assumption that you will be playing
> logically.  When a player is building a move tree in his mind, he
> generally only expands certain branches, and makes his move based on
> that pruned tree; if the opponent decides to follow one of the other,
> less promising branches, the player's original move may turn out to be
> less than optimal.
> 
> A good way to confound a logical player is to make completely random
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> moves.  The logic involved in strategic game playing generally involves
  ^^^^^
> predicting the other player's moves; this is quite difficult if the
> other player is random.  Kirk's play was probably not random, but he
> probably guessed every now and then, which was enough to throw Spock's
> strategy off.

In other words, this is a LOGICAL way to play against such a player, right?

			Scott McEwan
			{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!mcewan

"I'm sorry, sir. According to your identification you're not even born
 yet. Come back in 500 years."