Adversarial Search

Adversarial Search

• Adversarial search is a search, where we

examine the problem which arises when we try
to plan ahead of the world and other agents are
planning against us.
• The environment with more than one agent is
termed as multi-agent environment, in which
each agent is an opponent of other agent and
playing against each other.
• Each agent needs to consider the action of other
agent and effect of that action on their
performance.
• So, Searches in which two or more players
with conflicting goals are trying to explore
the same search space for the solution, are
called adversarial searches, often known as
Games.
• Games are modeled as a Search problem and
heuristic evaluation function, and these are
the two main factors which help to model and
solve games in AI.
 Types of Games in AI

• Perfect information: A game with the perfect

information is that in which agents can look into
the complete board. Agents have all the
information about the game, and they can see
each other moves also. Examples are Chess,
Checkers, Go, etc.
• Imperfect information: If in a game agents do not
have all information about the game and not
aware with what's going on, such type of games
are called the game with imperfect information,
such as tic-tac-toe, Battleship, blind, Bridge, etc.
 Types of Games in AI

• Deterministic games: Deterministic games are those

games which follow a strict pattern and set of rules for
the games, and there is no randomness associated with
them. Examples are chess, Checkers, Go, tic-tac-toe,
etc.
• Non-deterministic games: Non-deterministic are those
games which have various unpredictable events and
has a factor of chance or luck. This factor of chance or
luck is introduced by either dice or cards. These are
random, and each action response is not fixed. Such
games are also called as stochastic games.
Example: Backgammon, Monopoly, Poker, etc.
 Zero-Sum Game

• Zero-sum games are adversarial search which involves

pure competition.
• In Zero-sum game each agent's gain or loss of utility is
exactly balanced by the losses or gains of utility of
another agent.
• One player of the game try to maximize one single
value, while other player tries to minimize it.
• Each move by one player in the game is called as ply.
• Chess and tic-tac-toe are examples of a Zero-sum
game.
 Zero-sum game: Embedded thinking

• The Zero-sum game involved embedded thinking in

which one agent or player is trying to figure out:
• What to do.
• How to decide the move
• Needs to think about his opponent as well
• The opponent also thinks what to do
• Each of the players is trying to find out the response of
his opponent to their actions. This requires embedded
thinking or backward reasoning to solve the game
problems in AI.
 Formalization of the problem

A game can be defined as a type of search in AI

which can be formalized of the following
elements:
• Initial state: It specifies how the game is set up at
the start.
• Player(s): It specifies which player has moved in
the state space.
• Action(s): It returns the set of legal moves in
state space.
• Result(s, a): It is the transition model, which
specifies the result of moves in the state space.
• Terminal-Test(s): Terminal test is true if the game
is over, else it is false at any case. The state where
the game ends is called terminal states.
• Utility(s, p): A utility function gives the final
numeric value for a game that ends in terminal
states s for player p. It is also called payoff
function. For Chess, the outcomes are a win, loss,
or draw and its payoff values are +1, 0, ½. And for
tic-tac-toe, utility values are +1, -1, and 0.
 Game tree

• A game tree is a tree where nodes of the tree are the

game states and Edges of the tree are the moves by
players. Game tree involves initial state, actions
function, and result Function.
Example: Tic-Tac-Toe game tree:
• Following are some key points of the game:
• There are two players MAX and MIN.
• Players have an alternate turn and start with MAX.
• MAX maximizes the result of the game tree
• MIN minimizes the result.
• From the initial state, MAX has 9 possible moves as he
starts first. MAX place x and MIN place o, and both
player plays alternatively until we reach a leaf node
where one player has three in a row or all squares are
filled.
• Both players will compute each node, minimax, the
minimax value which is the best achievable utility
against an optimal adversary.
• Suppose both the players are well aware of the tic-tac-
toe and playing the best play. Each player is doing his
best to prevent another one from winning. MIN is
acting against Max in the game.
• So in the game tree, we have a layer of Max, a
layer of MIN, and each layer is called as Ply.
Max place x, then MIN puts o to prevent Max
from winning, and this game continues until
the terminal node.
• In this either MIN wins, MAX wins, or it's a
draw. This game-tree is the whole search
space of possibilities that MIN and MAX are
playing tic-tac-toe and taking turns alternately.
• Hence adversarial Search for the minimax
procedure works as follows:
• It aims to find the optimal strategy for MAX to
win the game.
• It follows the approach of Depth-first search.
• In the game tree, optimal leaf node could
appear at any depth of the tree.
• Propagate the minimax values up to the tree
until the terminal node discovered.
• In a given game tree, the optimal strategy can
be determined from the minimax value of
each node, which can be written as
MINIMAX(n). MAX prefer to move to a state of
maximum value and MIN prefer to move to a
state of minimum value then: