Scribd
Upload
40 views

The Minimax Algorithm

The minimax algorithm is used to find the optimal move in two-player games. It works by having nodes that represent the player's moves (MAX nodes) which aim to maximize the subtree value, and nodes for the opponent's moves (MIN nodes) which minimize the subtree value. To evaluate moves, it simulates playing down a certain number of full moves (one by each player), calculates values for the end states, and works backwards to determine the move with the highest value for the original player.

Uploaded by

Xâlmañ Kháñ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
40 views

The Minimax Algorithm

The minimax algorithm is used to find the optimal move in two-player games. It works by having nodes that represent the player's moves (MAX nodes) which aim to maximize the subtree value, and nodes for the opponent's moves (MIN nodes) which minimize the subtree value. To evaluate moves, it simulates playing down a certain number of full moves (one by each player), calculates values for the end states, and works backwards to determine the move with the highest value for the original player.

Uploaded by

Xâlmañ Kháñ
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

The Minimax Algorithm

The minimax algorithm is a way of finding an optimal move in a two player


game. In the search tree for a two-player game, there are two kinds of nodes,
nodes representing your moves and nodes representing your opponent's moves.
Nodes representing your moves are generally drawn as squares (or possibly
upward pointing triangles):

These are also called MAX nodes. The goal at a MAX node is
to maximize the value of the subtree rooted at that node. To do
this, a MAX node chooses the child with the greatest value,
and that becomes the value of the MAX node.

Nodes representing your opponent's moves are generally drawn as circles (or
possibly as downward pointing triangles):

These are also called MIN nodes. The goal at a MIN node is
to minimize the value of the subtree rooted at that node. To
do this, a MIN node chooses the child with the smallest value,
and that becomes the value of the MIN node.

To demonstrate the minimax algorithm, I'm going use the following tree. Note
that it's typical for two player games to have different branching factors at each
node. The move I make could make restrictions on what moves are possible for
the other player, or possibly remove restrictions. Note also that in this example,
we're ignoring what the game or the probem space are in order to focus on the
algorithm.
So now you've seen the whole search tree. For the rest of the diagrams, I'll only
show the portion of the tree that we've already explored at that particular time.
Thus, when we start the problem, all minimax sees is the start node:

It begins like a depth first search, generating the first child. Then we see this:

So far we've really seen no evaluation values. The way minimax works is to go
down a specified number of full moves (where one "full move" is actually a move
by you and a move by your opponent), then calculate evaluation values for states
at that depth. For this example, we're going to go down one full move, which is
one more level. When we generate the values for those nodes, here is what we
see:

Now we have the values of the children of the min node, so it can do its work. It
chooses the minimum of the two child node values, which is 3. Now we have this:

The max node at the top still has two other children nodes that we need to
generate and search. We go on and generate the second node and generate its
child. Since there is only one child, the min node must take it's value, and we
have this:

Finally, minimax generates the third child of the top-level max node, generates
its children, and evaluates them:

Now the third min node chooses the minimum of it's child node values, 1, and we
have this:
Finally we have all of the values of the children of the max node at the top level,
so it chooses the maximum of them, 15, and we get the final solution:

What this tells us is that we should take the move that leads to the middle min
node, since it'll lead to the best possible state for us one full move down the road.

You might also like