Introduction to AI Techniques

Game Search, Minimax, and Alpha Beta Pruning

June 8, 2009

Introduction
One of the biggest areas of research in modern Artificial Intelligence is in
making computer players for popular games. It turns out that games that
most humans can become reasonably good at after some practice, such as
GO, Chess, or Checkers, are actually difficult for computers to solve.

In exploring how we could make machines play the games we play, we are
forced to ask ourselves how we play those games. Although it seems that
humans use some notion of “intelligence” in playing a game like chess, our
approaches in solving such games have not progressed much farther than the
sort of brute force approaches that we experimented with in the 50s. Unfor-
tunately, present computer players usually rely on some sort of search over
possible game outcomes to find the optimal move, rather than using what
we would deem intelligent behavior.

In this discussion we will see some of the ideas behind these computer play-
ers, as well as future directions the field might take, and how these computer
approaches can both help us learn to play the games better as well as point
out some fundamental differences between human play and machine play.

As a quick time line to show how (not very) far we have come since Claude
Shannon’s (a famous MIT professor, the father of Information Theory, etc.)
Programming a Computer Playing Chess, 1948 :

• 1948 Claude Shannon

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SP.268 AI Techniques For Solving Games

• 1951 Alan Turing works out a plan on paper for a chess-playing com-
puter program.

• 1966-1967 Mac Hack 6, developed at MIT, first chess program to beat

a person in tournament play

• 1997 Deep Blue beats Kasparov, the reigning world chess champion at
the time, in a best out of 6 match. This was seen as a landmark in
the chess program world, but really Deep Blue was just like previous
chess playing machines with bigger and better computing power, and
no more “intelligence” than any previous model.

Well-known Players
The most popular recent game to be solved is checkers, which had up to 200
processors running night and day from 1989 to 2007. Checkers has 5 ∗ 1020
possible positions on its 8 by 8 board. It is now known that perfect play
by each side results in a draw. You can play around with the database on
the Chinook project’s website: www.cs.ualberta.ca/ chinook/. The game is
strongly solved, and for every move Chinook tells you whether it leads to a
winning strategy, a losing strategy, or a draw.

Another famous computer player is Deep Blue, who beat chess world cham-
pion Garry Kasparov in 1997, which was capable of evaluating 200 million
positions per second.

How To Solve a Game?

What if we just give the computer simple rules to follow in what is known as a
knowledge based approach. This is how a lot of beginner and sometimes
advanced human players might play certain games, and in some games it
actually works (we’ll take a closer look using Connect Four next time). Take
the following rules for tic-tac-toe, for instance. You give it the following
instructions to blindly follow in order of importance:

1. If there is a winning move, take it.

2. If your opponent has a winning move, take the move so he can’t take
it.

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3. Take the center square over edges and corners.

4. Take corner squares over edges.
5. Take edges if they are the only thing available.
Let’s see what happens when the computer plays this game (picture taken
from Victor Allis’s Connect Four Thesis):

This approach clearly will not always work. There are so many exceptions to
rules that for a game like chess enumerating all the possible rules to follow
would be completely infeasible. The next logical option to try is search. If a
player could predict how the other player would respond to the next move,
and how he himself would respond to that, and how the next player would
respond next, etc., then clearly our player would have a huge advantage and
would be able to play the best move possible. So why don’t we just build
our computer players to search all the possible next moves down the game
tree (which we will see in more detail soon) and chooses the best move from
these results? I can think of at least two of many good reasons:
• Complexity - As we will see below, if a game offers players b different
possible moves each turn, and the game takes d moves total, then
the possible number of games is around bd . That’s an exponential
search space, not looking good! For tic-tac-toe, there are about 255,168
possible games. Definitely reasonable. But for chess, this number is
around 3640 , something like more than the number of particles in the
universe. No good.
• It’s not intelligence! Brute computational force is not exactly intell-
gience. Not very exciting science here, at least not for us theoretical

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people. Maybe exciting for the hardware guys that build faster pro-
cessors and smaller memory to that we have the computational power
to solve these games, but other than that not very cool... It would be
much more exciting to come up with a “thinking” player.

So what should we do? We can’t use just simple rules, but only using search
doesn’t really work out either. What if we combine both? This is what is done
most of the time. Part of the game tree is searched, and then an evaluation,
a kind of heuristic (to be discussed more soon) is used. This approach works
relatively well, and there is a good deal of intelligence needed in designing
the evaluation functions of games.

Games as Trees
For most cases the most convenient way to represent game play is on a graph.
We will use graphs with nodes representing game “states” (game position,
score, etc.) and edges representing a move by a player that moves the game
from one state to another:

Using these conventions, we can turn the problem of solving a game into a
version of graph search, although this problem differs from other types of
graph search. For instance, in many cases we want to find a single state in
a graph, and the path from our start state to that state, whereas in game
search we are not looking for a single path, but a winning move. The path
we take might change, since we cannot control what our opponent does.

Below is a small example of a game graph. The game starts in some ini-
tial state at the root of the game tree. To get to the next level, player one
chooses a move, A, B, C, or D. To get to the next level, player two makes a
move, etc. Each level of the tree is called a ply .

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So if we are player one, our goal is to find what move to take to try to ensure
we reach one of the “W” states. Note that we cannot just learn a strategy
and specify it beforehand, because our opponent can do whatever it wants
and mess up our plan.

When we talk about game graphs some terms you might want to be familiar
with are:

• Branching factor (b)

The number of outgoing edges from a single node. In a game graph,

this corresponds to the number of possible moves a player can make.
So for instance, if we were graphing tic-tac-toe, the branching factor
would be 9 (or less, since after a person moves the possible moves are
limited, but you get the idea)

• Ply

A level of the game tree. When a player makes a move the game
tree moves to the next ply.

• Depth (d)

How many plys we need to go down the game tree, or how many moves
the game takes to complete. In tic-tac-toe this is probably somewhere
around 6 or 7 (just made that up...). In chess this is around 40.

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Minimax
The most used game tree search is the minimax algorithm. To get a sense
for how this works, consider the following:

Helen and Stavros are playing a game. The rules of this game are very
mysterious, but we know that each state involves Helen having a certain
number of drachmas at each state. Poor Stavros never gets any drachmas,
but he doesn’t want Helen to get any richer and keep bossing him around.
So Helen wants to maximize her drachmas, while Stavros wants to minimize
them. What should each player do? At each level Helen will choose the move
leading to the greatest value, and Stavros will move to the minimum-valued
state, hence the name “minimax.”

Formally, the minimax algorithm is described by the following pseudocode:

def max-value(state,depth):
if (depth == 0): return value(state)
v = -infinite
for each s in SUCCESSORS(state):
v = MAX(v,min-value(s,depth-1))
return v

def min-value(state,depth):
if (depth == 0): return value(state)
v = infinite
for each s in SUCCESSORS(state):
v = MIN(v,max-value(s,depth-1))
return v

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We will play out this game on the following tree:

The values at the leaves are the actual values of games corresponding to the
paths leading to those nodes. We will say Helen is the first player to move.
So she wants to take the option (A,B,C,D) that will maximize her score. But
she knows in the next ply down Stavros will try to minimize the score, etc. So
we must fill in the values of the tree recursively, starting from the bottom up.

Helen maximizes:

Stavros minimizes:

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Helen maximizes:

So Helen should choose option C as her first move.

This game tree assumes that each player is rational, or in other words they
are assumed to always make the optimal moves. If Helen makes her decision
based on what she thinks Stavros will do, is her strategy ruined if Stavros
does something else (not the optimal move for him)? The answer is no! Helen
is doing the best she can given Stavros is doing the best he can. If Stavros
doesn’t do the best he can, then Helen will be even better off!

Consider the following situation: Helen is smart and picks C, expecting that
after she picks C that Stavros will choose A to minimize Helen’s score. But
then Helen will choose B and have a score of 15 compared to the best she
could do, 10, if Stavros played the best he could.

So when we go to solve a game like chess, a tree like this (except with many
more nodes...) would have leaves as endgames with certain scores assigned
to them by an evaluation function (discussed below), and the player to move

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would find the optimal strategy by applying minimax to the tree.

Alpha-Beta Pruning
While the minimax algorithm works very well, it ends up doing some extra
work. This is not so bad for Helen and Stavros, but when we are dealing
with trees of size 3640 we want to do as little work as possible (my favorite
motto of computer scientists... we try to be as lazy as possible!).

In the example above, Helen really only cares about the value of the node
at the top, and which outgoing edge she should use. She doesn’t really care
about anything else in the tree. Is there a way for her to avoid having to
look at the entire thing?

To evaluate the top node, Helen needs values for the three nodes below.
So first she gets the value of the one on the left. (we will move from left to
right as convention). Since this is the first node she’s evaluating, there aren’t
really any short cuts. She has to look at all the nodes on the left branch.
So she finds a value of 7 and moves on to the middle branch. After looking
at the first subbranch of her B option, Helen finds a value of 7. But what
happens the next level up? Stavros will try to minimize the value that Helen
maximized. The left node is already 7, so we know Stavros will not pick
anything greater than 7. But we also know Helen will not pick anything in
the middle branch less than 7. So there is no point in evaluating the rest of
the middle branch. We will just leave it at 7:

Helen then moves on to the rightmost branch. She has to look at the 10 and
the 11. She also has to look at the 2 and 15. But once she finds the 15, she
knows that she will make the next node up at least 15, and Stavros is going

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to choose the minimum, so he will definitely choose the 10. So there is no

need to evaluate the 7.

So we saved evaluating 6 out of 26 nodes. Not bad, and often alpha-beta

does a lot better than that.

Formally, the alpha-beta pruning optimization to the minimax algorithm

is as follows:

a = best score for max-player (helen)

b = best score for min-player (stavros)
initially, we call max-value(initial, -infinite, infinite, max-depth)

def max-value(state, a, b, depth):

if (depth == 0): return value(state)
for s in SUCCESSORS(state):
a = max(a, min-value(s,a,b,depth-1))
if a >= b: return a \\ this ia a cutoff point
return a

def min-value(state, a, b, depth):

if (depth == 0): return value(state)
for s in SUCCESSORS(state):
b = min(b,max-value(s,a,b,depth-1))
if b <= a: return b \\ this is a cutoff point
return b

There are a couple things we should point out about alpha-beta compared
to minimax:

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SP.268 AI Techniques For Solving Games

• Are we guaranteed a correct solution?

Yes! Alpha-beta does not actually change the minimax algorithm, ex-
cept for allowing us to skip some steps of it sometimes. We will always
get the same solution from alpha-beta and minimax.

• Are we guaranteed to get to a solution faster?

No! Even using alpha-beta, we might still have to explore all bd nodes.
A LOT of the success of alpha-beta depends on the ordering in which
we explore different nodes. Pessimal ordering might causes us to do
no better than Manama’s, but an optimal ordering of always exploring
the best options first can get us to only the square root of that. That
means we can go twice as far down the tree using no more resources
than before. In fact, the majority of the computational power when
trying to solve games goes into cleverly ordering which nodes are ex-
plored when, and the rest is used on performing the actual alpha-beta
algorithm.

Interesting Side Note - Konig’s Lemma

I will use this opportunity to introduce an interesting theorem from graph
theory that applies to our game graphs, called Konig’s Lemma:

Theorem: Any graph with a finite branching factor and an infinite num-
ber of nodes must have an infinite path.
Proof: Assume we have a graph with each node having finitely many branches
but infinitely many nodes. Start at the root. At least one of its branches
must have an infinite number of nodes below it. Choose this node to start
our infinite path. Now treat this new node as the root. Repeat. We have
found an infinite path.

How does this apply to our game trees? This tells us that for every game,
either:

1. It is possible for the game to never end.

2. There is a finite maximum number of moves the game will take to

terminate.

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Note that we are assuming a finite branching factor, or in other words, each
player has only finitely many options open to them when it is his or her turn.

Implementation
As we have said over and over again, actually implementing these huge game
trees is often a huge if not impossible challenge. Clearly we cannot search
all the way to the bottom of a search tree. But if we don’t go to the bottom,
how will we ever know the value of the game?

The answer is we don’t. Well, we guess. Most searches will involve search-
ing to some preset depth of the tree, and then using a static evaluation
function to guess the value of game positions at that depth.

Using an evaluation function is an example of a heuristic approach to solv-

ing the problem. To get an idea of what we mean by heuristic, consider the
following problem: Robby the robot wants to get from MIT to Walden Pond,
but doesn’t know which roads to take. So he will use the search algorithm
he wrote to explore every possible combination of roads he could take lead-
ing out of Cambridge and take the route to Walden Pond with the shortest
distance.

This will work... eventually. But if Robby searches every possible path,
some other paths will end up leading him to Quincy, some to Providence,
some to New Hampshire, all of which are nowhere near where he actually
wants to go. So what if Robby refines his search. He will assign a heuristic
value, the airplane (straight line) distance to each node (road intersection),
and direct his search so as to choose nodes with the minimum heuristic value
and help direct his search toward the goal. The heuristic acts as an estimate
that helps guide Robby.

Similarly, in game search, we will assign a heuristic value to each game state
node using an evaluation function specific to the game. When we get as far
as we said we would down the search tree, we will just treat the nodes at
that depth as leaves evaluating to their heuristic value.

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Evaluation Functions
Evaluation functions, besides the problem above of finding the optimal or-
dering of game states to explore, is perhaps the part of game search/play
that involves the most actual thought (as opposed to brute force search).
These functions, given a state of the game, will compute a value based only
on the current state, and cares nothing about future or past states.

As an example evaluation, consider one of the type that Shannon used in

his original work on solving chess. His function (from White’s perspective)
calculates the value for white as:

• +1 for each pawn

• +3 for each knight or bishop

• +5 for each rook

• +9 for each queen

• + some more points based on pawn structure, board space, threats,

etc.

it then calculates the value for black in a similar manner, and the value of
the game state is equal to White’s value minus Black’s value. Therefore the
higher the value of the game, the better for white.

For many games the evaluation of certain game positions have been stored in
a huge database that is used to try to “solve” the game. A couple examples
are:

• OHex - partial solutions to Hex games

• Chinook - database of checkers positions

As you can see, these functions can get quite complicated. Right now, eval-
uation functions require tedious refinements by humans and are tested rig-
orously through trial and error before good ones are found. There was some
work done (cs.cmu.edu/ jab/pubs/propo/propo.html) on ways for machines
to “learn” evaluation functions based on machine learning techniques. If ma-
chines are able to learn heuristics, the possibilities for computer game playing

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will be greatly broadened beyond our current pure search strategies.

Later we’ll see a different way of evaluating games, using a class of num-
bers called the surreal numbers, developed by John Conway.

Solving a Game
We often talk about the notion of “solving” a game. There are three basic
types of “solutions” to games:

1. Ultra-weak The result of perfect play by each side is known, but the
strategy is not known specifically.

2. Weak The result of perfect play and strategy from the start of the
game are both known.

3. Strong The result and strategy are computed for all possible positions.

How far do we need to Search?

How far do we need to search down the tree for our computer player to be
successful? Consider the following graph (the vertical axis is a chess ability
score):

(taken from 6.034 coursenotes).

Deep Blue used 32 processors, searched 50-10 billion moves in 3 minutes, and
looked at 13-30 plys per search.

Clearly, to approach the chess -playing level of world champion humans,

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with current techniques searching deeper is the key. Also obvious, is that
real players couldn’t possibly be searching 13 moves deep, so there must be
some other factor involved in being good at chess.

Is game-play all about how many moves we see ahead?

If searching deep into the game tree is so hard, how are humans able to
play games like Chess and GO so well? Do we play by mentally drawing
out a game board and performing minimax? It seems that instead humans
use superior heuristic evaluations, and base their moves on experience from
previous game play or some sort of intuition. Good players do look ahead,
but only a couple of plys. The question still remains as to how humans can
do so well compared to machines. Why is it hardest for a machine to do
what is easiest for a human?

Alternative Search Methods

There are countless tweaks and alternatives to the maximin and alpha-beta
pruning search algorithms. We will go over one, the proof-number search,
here, and leave another variation, conspiracy number search, for our discus-
sion next week on connect four.

PN-search
While alpha-beta search deals with assigning nodes of the game tree con-
tinuous values, proof number search decides whether a given node is a win
or a loss. Informally, pn-search can be described as looking for the shortest
solution to tell whether or not a given game state is a win or a loss for our
player of interest.

Before we talk about proof number search, we introduce AND-OR trees.

These are two level alternating trees, where the first level is an OR node, the
second level consists of AND nodes, etc. The tree below is an example:

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If we assign all the leaves to values (T)rue or (F)alse, we can move up the
tree, evaluating each node as either the AND of its leaves or the OR of its
leaves. Eventually we will get the value of the root node, which is what we
are looking for.

For any given node, we have the following definitions:

• PN-number: The proof number of a node is the minimum number of
children nodes required to be expanded to prove the goal.

– AND: pn = Σ(pn of all the children nodes)

– OR: pn = (argmin(pn of children nodes))

• DN-number: The disproof number is the minimum number of chil-

dren nodes required to disprove the goal.

– AND: dn = argmin(dn of children nodes)

– OR: dn = Σ(dn of children nodes)

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SP.268 AI Techniques For Solving Games

When we get to a leaf, we will have (pn,dn) either (0, ∞), (∞, 0), or (1,1),
since the game is either a sure win or sure loss at that point, with itself as
its proof set. The tree is considered solved when either pn = 0 (the answer
is true) or dn = 0 (the answer is false) for the root node.

When we take a step back and think about it, an AND/OR tree is very
much a minimax tree. The root starts out as an OR node. So the first player
has his choice of options, and he will pick one that allows his root node to
evaluate to true. The second player must play at an AND node: unless he
can make his node T no matter what, (so F for player 1), then player one
will just take one of the favorable options left for him. So an AND/OR tree
is just a min/max tree in a sense, with ORs replacing the MAX levels and
AND replacing the MIN levels.

PN search is carried out using the following rough outline:

1. Expand nodes, update pn and dn numbers.

2. Take the node with the lowest pn or dn, propagate the values back up
until you reach the root node ∗ .

3. Repeat until the root node has pn=0 or dn = 0.

The slightly tricky part of this is the second step. What we really want to
find is the Most Proving Node. Formally, this is defined as the frontier
node of an AND/OR tree, which by obtaining a value of True reduces the
tree’s pn value by 1, and obtaining a value of False reduces the dn by 1.
So evaluating this node is guaranteed to make progress in either proving or
disproving the tree.

An important observation is that the smallest proof set to disprove a node

and the smallest proof set to prove a node will always have some nodes in
common. That is, their intersection will not be empty. Why is this? In a
brief sketch of a proof by contradiction, assume for the contrary that they
had completely disjoint sets of nodes. Then we could theoretically have a
complete proof set and a complete disproof set at the same time. But we
cannot both prove and disprove a node! So the sets must share some nodes
in common.

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What we get out of all of this is that we don’t really have to decide whether
we will work on proving or disproving the root node, as we can make progress
doing both. So now we can be certain of what we will do at each step of the
algorithm. The revised step 2 from above is:

At an OR level, choose the node with the smallest pn to expand. At an

AND level, choose the node with the smallest dn to expand.

The tree below is an example of pn search, taken from Victor Allis’s “Search-
ing for Solutions, ” in which “R” is the “most-proving node.”

Others
I will just briefly mention a couple of other variations on game search that
have been tried, many with great success.

• Alpha-beta, choosing a constrained range for alpha and beta before-

hand.

• Monte Carlo with PN search: randomly choose some nodes to expand,

and then perform pn-search on this tree

• Machine learning of heuristic values

• Group edges of the search tree into “macros” (we will see this)

• A gazillion more.

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Next Time: Connect Four and Conspiracy Number Search!

References
• Victor Allis, Searching for Solutions, http://fragrieu.free.fr/SearchingForSolutions.pdf

• Intelligent Search Techniques: Proof Number Search, MICC/IKAT

Universiteit Maastricht

• Various years of 6.034 lecture notes

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