### Even Wins

This is a game between you and the computer. To play, an odd number of objects (marbles, chips, matches) are placed in a row. You take turns with the computer picking up between one and four objects each turn. The game ends when there are no objects left, and the winner is the one with an even number of objects picked up.

Two versions of this game are included. While to the player they appear similar, the programming approach is quite different. EVEN WINS, the first version, is deterministic — i.e., the computer plays by fixed, good rules and is impossible to beat if you don’t know how to play the game. It always starts with 27 objects, although you may change this.

The second version, GAME OF EVEN WINS, is much more interesting because the computer starts out only knowing the rules of the game. Using simple techniques of artificial intelligence (cybernetics), the computer gradually learns to play this game from its mistakes until it plays a very good game. After 20 games, the computer is a challenge to beat. Variation in the human’s style of play seems to make the computer learn more quickly. If you plot the learning curve of this program, it closely resembles classical human learning curves from psychological experiments.

Eric Peters at DEC wrote the GAME OF EVEN WINS. The original author of EVEN WINS is unknown.

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As published in Basic Computer Games (1978):
- [Atari Archives](https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=60)
- [Annarchive](https://annarchive.com/files/Basic_Computer_Games_Microcomputer_Edition.pdf#page=75)

Downloaded from Vintage Basic at
http://www.vintage-basic.net/games.html

#### Porting Notes

(please note any difficulties or challenges in porting here)
