With most information hidden, the game Stratego

Altogether, four major computer programs had failed to conquer the classic strategy game Stratego. Yet, a collective of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, New York University, and Stanford University have achieved the seemingly impossible. Their artificial intelligence, Ataraxos, managed to triumph over the top Stratego player, Pim Niemeijer, in a series of 15 matches, with four draws. The AI's victory was accomplished with a mere 16 graphics processing units and a budget of a few thousand dollars.

Stratego is a game of hidden information, much like poker, where players' moves and the identities of their pieces are concealed. The goal is to capture the opponent's flag, with the game's identities revealed only upon collision during battles. The weaker piece is eliminated, and the victor's identity is unveiled. Eugene Vinitsky of NYU, a co-author of the study, highlights the game's unique aspect of "a massive amount of hidden information that unfolds over a very long time scale."