Date:     Mon, 3 Oct 94 18:14:37 MET
From: Victor Allis <victor@cs.vu.nl>
Subject:  intro for thesis

Two theses by the same author on games and artificial intelligence are
electronically available. For both, a short description is specified below,
as well as a description how the theses can be obtained.

About the author:
L. Victor Allis has received a Masters Degree in Computer Science in 1988
for his solution of the game Connect-Four. In 1994 he received a Ph.D.
for his thesis "Searching for Solutions in Games and Artificial Intelligence".
Currently, he holds a position as Assistant Professor in Artificial
Intelligence at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
He can be contacted at victor@cs.vu.nl.

The Masters thesis (95 pages) describes how the game Connect-Four has
been solved (showing that the first player can win, provided he places
his first stone in the center column). The solution is based on knowledge
of an expert player, which has been formalized. The resulting program,
VICTOR, makes each of its moves in less than a second per move, and guarantees
to win when playing first. When playing second, the program hardly ever loses
(except against an optimal opponent, of course).

In the Ph.D. thesis (223 pages), thinking games are investigated from the
perspective of research in Artificial Intelligence.
In the introduction (chapter 1) the relevance of such investigations is
discussed. Then, two new search techniques, proof-number search (chapter 2)
and dependency-based search (chapter 3) are described, which have been
developed while solving the games connect-four, qubic and go-moku.
The solutions to the last two of these games are described in
chapters 4 and 5.
Finally, the complexity and state-of-the-art in computer game playing
is described for each of the games in the so-called Olympic List of 15
well-known games, leading to a prediction for the future of games
(chapter 6).
The thesis includes preliminary, summary, bibliography and index.

Anyone interested can obtain the theses in three different ways.

1. FTP: 	ftp.cs.vu.nl
		pub/victor/connect4.ps.Z		(M.Sc Thesis)
		pub/victor/PhDthesis/thesis.ps.Z	(Ph.D.Thesis)

2. World Wide Web:
		http://www.cs.vu.nl/~victor/thesis.html

   Here it is both possible to obtain individual parts of the Ph.D. thesis,
   as well as obtaining it as a whole, and obtaining the M.Sc thesis.

3. The Ph.D. thesis can also be obtained in book form.
   I had 400 copies of it printed at 17x24 cm, with a nice cover design,
   (see the above page at World Wide Web for a picture of the thesis) of
   which I have enough copies left to sell. Once I run out of copies,
   I will use the money earned by selling it, to have new copies printed,
   so I plan to be able to provide anyone interested with a copy.

   Anyone who would like to obtain the book (ISBN 90-9007488-0), can order
   one by sending 20 dollar US (or the equivalent in any other foreign
   currency) in CASH in an envelope to:

	Victor Allis
	Department of Computer Science
	Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
	Vrije Universiteit
	De Boelelaan 1081 
	1081 HV Amsterdam
	The Netherlands

   Upon receiving the money, I will send a thesis to you. Make
   sure to clear indicate your postal address.

   I do not accept checks of any form, since the bank fees involved
   in cashing a check are approximately $US 10, which means that not
   much is left.

I hope you enjoy reading the thesis. Any comments or questions are welcomed.

Victor Allis
