A comparison and evaluation of three machine learning procedures as applied to the game of checkers

摘要

This paper presents two new machine learning procedures used to arrive at “knowledgeable” static evaluators for checker board positions. The static evaluators are compared with each other, and with the linear polynomial used by Samuel [9], using two different numerical indices reflecting the extent to which they agree with the choices of checker experts in the course of tabulated book games. The new static evaluators are found to perform about equally well, despite the relative simplicity of the second; and they perform noticably better than the linear polynomial. An indication of the significance of the absolute values of these two numerical indices is provided by a discussion of a simple, purely heuristic, static evaluator, whose performance indices lie between those of the polynomial and those of the other two static evaluators.