Note: [1] A preliminary earlier version of this paper appears in: H.-J. Chang and T.-s. Hsu. “A Quantitative Study of 2×4 Chinese Dark Chess.” In: International Conference on Computers and Games.
Note: [*] Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan.
Note: [**] Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan.
Note: [***] Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taipei University, New Taipei City 237, Taiwan.
Abstract: This paper considers the 2×4 variation of a popular 2-player imperfect information game Chinese dark chess (CDC). The 2×4 version is solved by computing the game-theoretical value of each position for all possible material combinations with at most four red pieces and four black pieces. The experimental results show that where to make the first move, which must be a flip, is the most important factor to affect the outcome of a game. We find that choosing a square to flip that has the best-expected outcome may not be the best strategy. Instead, a square that has the best-expected difference before and after the first move is made should be chosen. We also discover that 2×4 CDC is unfair and it is favorable to the second player, but some openings are fair. We believe observations and techniques made here can be used to improve the performance of programs for playing the original 4×8 full version of CDC.
Keywords: Chinese dark chess, endgame database, imperfect information game, 2 × 4 game board
DOI: 10.3233/ICG-180049
Journal: ICGA Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 61-76, 2018
