The early research into games was restricted to two-player, perfect information
games. With the decline of interest in chess research in the
1990s, efforts switched to other games, including those with multiple
players and having imperfect information. Imperfect information provides
an interesting challenge. In these types of games, humans observe
their opponent’s actions and make inferences as to the missing information.
Human intuition and experience can be amazingly accurate. Computers
have difficulty approximating experience and intuition, but are
capable of precise probability calculations. The computer’s solution is
simulation: instantiate the missing information many times, each time
calculating the likely outcome. In this way, a statistical profile can be
obtained that indicates the computer’s best course of action.