Re: [ba-poker] Bots

["James Kittock" <james(deleted the rest)>]

> At Thursday, 3/4/2004 02:01 PM -0800, James Kittock wrote:
> >Having said that, there are games where a "bot",
> >that is, a computer program, makes the game
> >relatively pointless for humans.  Scrabble is
> >a good example--well-written Scrabble programs
> >generally crush the best human players.
>
> Do you have proof of this?  I would think Jim Geary, for one, would
disagree.

First-hand proof? No. However, in "Word Freaks",
Stephan Fastis says that a Scrabble program beat
the current world champion and another top-rated
player 6 games to 3, and that was in 1998.

Based on my knowledge of A.I. (which is at least
enough to make me dangerous), I find it pretty easy
to believe that Scrabble is relatively easy for
computers to play well.  The fact that a computer
can immediately recall all 120,000 or so valid words
(more in the international list) is certainly
a significant factor, although I don't think it
is the only one.

--j