>>"To the best of our knowledge Arimaa is the first game that was
designed intentionally to be difficult for computers to play."

whether or not this is true, and it may be, it is hardly compelling
advertising. i haven't even read the rules for it yet, altho i
will. i think a lot of people, esp those who are not really familiar
with abstract strategy games and chess variants, consider chess to be
the ultimate in intellectual gaming, and therefore assume,
consciously or not, that chess also represents the ultimate in
gameplaying programming, which it does not. i am not a programmer,
but i have repeatedly heard that go presents a challenge many times
greater than chess. shogi also presents a big challenge because of
drops. i'm sure if you look into it, the list goes on and on. so
the point is, programmers had plenty of game-related work ahead of
them long before arimaa showed up. in fact, now that i think about
it, such a strategy could backfire. altho game programs create big
unsolved issues concerning cheating in email tournaments, most people
like computer programs for those times that they feel like playing
but don't have a human opponent available. it may be difficult for
the arimaa people to come up with something.

ben