New Trends in Clobber Programming

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Wieczorek, Wojciech¹ | Skinderowicz, Rafał¹ | Kozak, Jan¹ | Juszczuk, Przemysław¹

Affiliations: Sosnowiec, Poland

Note: [1] Institute of Computer Science, University of Silesia, Poland, corresponding author: email: wojciech.wieczorek@us.edu.pl

Abstract: Clobber is an abstract, two-player, strategy game invented in 2001 by the combinatorial game theorists Michael H. Albert, J. P. Grossman, and Richard Nowakowski. In 2005 and 2006 it was one of the events in the Computer Olympiad. Despite the simple rule set, Clobber is a hard game from the perspective of the theory of combinatorial games, and due to its computer implementation. This article provides a detailed exposition of four heuristic algorithms for playing the game. These algorithms were used in programs which took four leading places in a computer Clobber tournament at Silesian University.

DOI: 10.3233/ICG-2011-34304

Journal: ICGA Journal, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 150-158, 2011