Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 46.
The original matchbox version of MENACE (Courtesy of Donald Michie)
have the chosen colour reinforced by increasing the number of beads of
that colour. But if MENACE lost a game, the numbers of beads of those
colours corresponding to the moves MENACE had made in that game
would be reduced.
Michie describes how he tested MENACE by playing a “tournament”
of 220 games against it, occupying two eight-hour sessions on successive
days.
By the end of the first 20 plays the machine was settling into a
stereotyped line which ensured a draw in face of 'best strategy'. I
therefore resorted to a series of theoretically unsound variations, in
order to draw the machine into unfamiliar territory. Each of these
paid off for a time, but after 150 plays the machine had become ca-
pable of coping with anything, in the sense that whatever variations
I employed I could not get a better average result against it than a
draw. In fact after this point I did much worse than this, by un-
wisely continuing to manoeuvre in various ways. The machine was
by then exploiting unsound variations with increasing acumen, so
that I would have done better to return to 'best strategy' and put up
with an endless series of draws, or retire from the tournament. This
I eventually did after sustaining 8 defeats in 10 successive games.
At every stage, I used what tactics I judged to be the most hopeful.
