ABSTRACT
G. J. Simmons introduced the game of SIM which he describes as being “played by two persons on the six vertices of a regular hexagon using two colored pencils. Each player in turn fills in one of the 15 possible lines connecting a pair of the points. In an attempt to shed some light on a practical strategy, DeLoach wrote a computer program to play SIM, which he claims “is very difficult to beat, especially if it goes second.” This chapter introduces a new heuristic algorithm for programmed play of SIM that appears to be an improvement over the one given by DeLoach. It describes how this algorithm was incorporated into a program which allows one or two players to play SIM using a desktop calculator and a plotter which records the moves. The chapter gives the results of a calculator program which has completely enumerated the number and distribution of random games.
