A study in game-playing programming is made using the game of pentominoes which has a very large branching factor and where there exists almost no precise, factual information to guide the conduct of the play. The difficulties encountered imply that some apparent advantages of heuristic techniques are more heavily problem-dependent than is usually conceded. A guiding device capable of learning is incorporated which significantly improves the program's play in competition with versions lacking it and shows subjective improvement with human competition. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate