A speculative strategy

Abstract

In this contribution we propose a strategy which focuses on the game as well as on the opponent. Preference is given to the thoughts of the opponent, so that the strategy might be speculative. We describe a generalization of OM search, called (D, d)-OM search, where D stands for the depth of search by the player and d for the opponent’s depth of search. A difference in search depth can be exploited by deliberately chosing a suboptimal move in order to gain a larger advantage than when playing the optimal best move. The idea is that the opponent does not see the variant in sufficiently deep detail. Simulations using a game-tree model including an opponent model as well as experiments in the domain of Othello confirm the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.