Repeated Goofspiel: A Game of Pure Strategy

In this paper, we examine a pure strategy game known as Goofspiel and report on the results of round-robin competitions between 14 programs designed to play this game. Goofspiel is a two-person card game that is easy to play. However, playing this game successfully has proven to be a difficult task. There is no known “good” strategy for Goofspiel. This is the first time that playing Goofspiel has been examined in a context of a round-robin competition between programs. None of the participating programs won consistently against its rivals. Thus, no clear dominating strategy of play has emerged. In this respect, Goofspiel is similar to the Prisoner´s Dilemma where Tit-for-Tat has proven to be a good strategy against many but not against all. This paper introduces Repeated Goofspiel and presents preliminary experimental results. We hope it will motivate further research into this fascinating game.