SELF-PLAY,DEEP SEARCH AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

Abstract

Over the years, the research inspired by and/or closely related to Ken Thompson’s pioneering self-play experiments with his chess machine BELLE in the early 1980s provided many valuable insights and controversial topics for discussion in computer game-playing. This brief survey of the field demonstrates the fertility of Thompson’s original work. The overview includes a quick summary of the author’s own latest self-play experiment, also seeded by Thompson 20 years ago.