World-championship-caliber Scrabble Original Research Article

Computer Scrabble programs have achieved a level of performance that exceeds that of the strongest human players. Maven was the first program to demonstrate this against human opposition. Scrabble is a game of imperfect information with a large branching factor. The techniques successfully applied in two-player games such as chess do not work here. Maven combines a selective move generator, simulations of likely game scenarios, and the B∗ algorithm to produce a world-championship-caliber Scrabble-playing program.