I've been looking for material about Eurisko. Other than this championship, there appears to be no credible documentation of any of Eurisko's reported achievements.
It might be super-duper, but the fact that he wouldn't let anyone else use it, and that those amazing feats have not been reproduced by others despite huge advances - might just mean that there's more myth to truth in the stories about Eurisko.
(and ... quoting jonoff from same thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1861890 )
Adding to the mystery, I read the newyorker article (2009) linked from wikipedia on Eurisko, and it seems Lenat forgot the winning strategy Eurisko developed, or the first article is wrong.
"Eurisko, however, had judged that defense was more important than offense, that many cheap, invulnerable ships would outlast fleets consisting of a few high-priced, sophisticated vessels. There were ninety-six ships in Eurisko’s fleet, most of which were slow and clumsy because of their heavy armor" - 1984 article
"astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility, Lenat said. They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink." - 2009 article <
The Eurisko/Traveller story has never made sense to me psychologically though. People who are hardcore enough to enter a tournament for a very math-heavy game have probably already spent ages hacking the system, twisting it into an unrecognizable shape. It should have been very unlikely for these loopholes to have first been found by a program years later.