These example games all run early development versions of Elise. A few improvements were made in both strength and performance between these games and version 0.0.1. For example, Elise in these games did not have an exhaustive pre-end game search when only a couple tiles remained in the bag. As such, Elise is not quite at its full strength here. However, the games are still interesting and entertaining examples of Elise's emerging play style. Most games have brief commentary or notes.

One thing that will be readily apparent examining these games is that Elise is deadly in the late game (the bag has fewer than 20 tiles but is not yet empty.) It can often swindle a game that seems lost by playing carefully placed blocking moves, by closing the board, by exposing hooks for which it holds the only corresponding tile, or by holding back tiles until the other player empties the bag.

Elise gains a lot of strength in the late game from simulating many more different moves than other crossword game engines; Elise considers, at least briefly, many moves in the late game that humans or other computer players pass over. Elise gains additional late game strength from its board heuristics; Elise has a good idea what a "won" endgame looks like even without an exhaustive endgame search, and this allows it to steer its way there from several ply back. Furthermore, its facility to make opponent rack distribution guesses is especially advantageous late in the game; often a winning move comes by determining that an opponent highly likely either holds or lacks a specific power tile late in the game.

(Note: these games can be downloaded in GCG format here.)

Elise pre-release vs. Quackle 0.97

Pictured above: Quackle and Elise

The strongest crossword game engines in the world go at it in Scrabble® matches, using the ENABLE word list (roughly equivalent to the TWL98 tournament list, so QI and ZA are not legal here). Elise plays at 7-ply simulation (up to 2 minutes per move), Quackle plays its Championship player game. Players alternate starting move. Lots of amazing play here.

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6
Game 7
Game 8
Game 9
Game 10
Game 11
Game 12
Game 13
Game 14
Game 15
Game 16
Game 17
Game 18
Game 19
Game 20

The results of the matches: Elise takes 16 games, Quackle 4 games. Game 17 was probably the most exciting game for both players.

Elise pre-release vs. Scrabble Companion for DOS (1998)

Pictured above: Scrabble Companion having a little trouble with its offspring

A special match where Elise plays its predecessor. The Scrabble Companion is given the advantage of first move in all games, and Elise is somewhat handicapped by only playing at 3-ply simulation.

Racks are not shown for Scrabble Companion -- SC did not have a feature to show what racks it held or output a recap after the game.

Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
Game 6
Game 7
Game 8
Game 9
Game 10
Game 11
Game 12

Results of this series: Elise takes 10 games, Scrabble Companion takes 2.

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