Backtracking and Game Trees

1. Backtracking and Game Trees 15-211: Fundamental Data Structures and Algorithms April 17, 2003

2. A X O XO X OX O O B C D Backtracking

3. Backtracking • An algorithm-design technique • “Organized brute force” • Explore the space of possible answers • Do it in an organized way • Example: maze • Try S, E, N, W IN OUT

4. Backtracking is useful … • … when a problem is too hard to be solved directly • Maze traversal • 8-queens problem • Knight’s tour • … when we have limited time and can accept a good but potentially not optimal solution • Game playing (second part of lecture) • Planning (not in this class)

5. Basic backtracking • Develop answers by identifying a set of successive decisions. • Maze • Where do I go now: N, S, E or W? • 8 Queens • Where do I put the next queen? • Knight’s tour • Where do I jump next?

6. Basic backtracking 2 • Develop answers by identifying a set of successive decisions. • Decisions can be binary: ok or impossible (pure backtracking) • Decisions can have goodness (heuristic backtracking): • Good to sacrifice a pawn to take a bishop • Bad to sacrifice the queen to take a pawn

7. S Y X Q O V N R U M H P L K G C F B Basic Backtracking 3 • Can be implemented using a stack • Stack can be implicit in recursive calls • What if we get stuck? • Withdraw the most recent choice • Undo its consequences • Is there a new choice? • If so, try that • If not, you are at another dead-end IN OUT A

8. Basic Backtracking 4 • No optimality guarantees • If there are multiple solutions, simple backtracking will find one of them, but not necessarily the optimal • No guarantees that we’ll reach a solution quickly

9. Backtracking Summary • Organized brute force • Formulate problem so that answer amounts to taking a set of successive decisions • When stuck, go back, try the remaining alternatives • Does not give optimal solutions

10. X O XO X OX O O Games

11. Why Make Computers Play Games? • People have been fascinated by games since the dawn of civilization • Idealization of real-world problems containing adversary situations • Typically rules are very simple • State of the world is fully accessible • Example: auctions

12. What Kind of Games? • No, not Quake (although interesting research there, too) • Simpler Strategy Games: • Deterministic • Chess • Checkers • Othello • Go • Non-determinstic • Poker • Backgammon

13. So let’s take a simple game

14. moves moves moves A Tic Tac Toe Game Tree

15. A Tic Tac Toe Game Tree • Nodes • Denote board configurations • Include a score • Path • Successive moves by the players moves moves moves • Edges • Denote legal moves

16. KARPOV-KASPAROV, 19851.e4 c52.Nf3 e63.d4 cxd44.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a6 8.Na3 d5!? 9.cxd5 exd5 10.exd5 Nb4 11.Be2!?N Bc5! 12.0-0 0-0 13.Bf3 Bf5 14.Bg5 Re8! 15.Qd2 b5 16.Rad1 Nd3! 17.Nab1? h6! 18.Bh4 b4! 19.Na4 Bd6 20.Bg3 Rc8 21.b3 g5!!  22.Bxd6 Qxd6 23.g3 Nd7!  24.Bg2 Qf6! 25.a3 a5 26.axb4 axb4 27.Qa2 Bg6 28.d6 g4! 29.Qd2 Kg7 30.f3 Qxd6 31.fxg4 Qd4+ 32.Kh1 Nf6  33.Rf4 Ne4 34.Qxd3 Nf2+ 35.Rxf2 Bxd3 36.Rfd2 Qe3! 37.Rxd3 Rc1!! 38.Nb2 Qf2! 39.Nd2 Rxd1+ 40.Nxd1 Re1+   White resigned A path in a game tree

17. moves moves How to play? moves

18. 0 -1 ? 1 Two-player games • We can define the value (goodness) of a certain game state (board). • What about the non-final board? • Look at board, assign value • Look at children in game tree, assign value

19. moves moves How to play? 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 moves 1 0 0 0 1 0

20. 5 a b 9 7 d c 8 2 More generally • Player A (us) maximize goodness. • Player B (opponent) minimizes goodness Player A maximize Player B minimize Player A maximize

21. 5 a b 9 7 d c 8 2 Games Trees are useful… • Provide “lookahead” to determine what move to make next • Build whole tree = we know how to play

22. But there’s one problem… • Games have large search trees: • Tic-Tac-Toe • There are 9 ways we can make the first move and opponent has 8 possible moves he can make. • Then when it is our turn again, we can make 7 possible moves for each of the 8 moves and so on…. • 9! = 362,880

23. Or chess… • Suppose we look at 16 possible moves at each step • And suppose we explore to a depth of 50 turns • Then the tree will have 1650=10120 nodes! • DeepThought (1990) searched to a depth of 10

24. So… • Need techniques to avoid enumerating and evaluating the whole tree • Heuristic search

25. Heuristic search • Organize search to eliminate large sets of possibilities • Chess: Consider major moves first • Explore decisions in order of likely success • Chess: Use a library of known strategies • Save time by guessing search outcomes • Chess: Estimate the quality of a situation • Count pieces • Count pieces, using a weighting scheme • Count pieces, using a weighting scheme, considering threats

26. Mini-Max Algorithm

27. Mini-Max Algorithm • Player A (us) maximize goodness. • Player B (opponent) minimizes goodness Player A maximize (draw) Player B minimize (lose, draw) Player A maximize (lose, win) • At a leaf (a terminal position) A wins, loses, or draws. • Assign a score: 1 for win; 0 for draw; -1 for lose. • At max layers, take node score as maximum of the child node scores • At min layers, take nodes score as minimum of the child node scores 0 -1 0 -1 1

28. Let’s see it in action Max (Player A) 10 Min (Player B) 10 -5 Max(Player A) 10 16 7 -5 10 2 12 16 2 7 -5 -80 Evaluation function applied to the leaves!

29. Minimax, in reality • Rarely do we reach an actual leaf • Use estimator functions to statically guess goodness of missing subtrees MaxA moves MinB moves Max A moves 1 8 2 7

30. Minimax, in reality • Rarely do we reach an actual leaf • Use estimator functions to statically guess goodness of missing subtreesMaxA moves MinB moves Max A moves 2 1 1 8 2 7

31. Minimax, in reality • Rarely do we reach an actual leaf • Use estimator functions to statically guess goodness of missing subtreesMaxA moves MinB moves Max A moves 2 2 1 1 8 2 7

32. Minimax • Trade-off • Quality vs. Speed • Quality: deeper search • Speed: use of estimator functions • Balancing • Relative costs of move generation and estimator functions • Quality and cost of estimation function

33. Mini-Max Algorithm • Definitions • Terminal position is a position where the game is over • In TicTacToe a game may be over with a tie, win or loss • Each terminal position has some value • The value of a non-terminal position P, is given by • v(P) = max - v(P') P' in S(P) • Where S(P) is the set of all successor positions of P • Minus sign is there because the other player is moving into position P’

34. Mini-Max algorithm - pseudo code min-max(P){ if P is terminal, return v(P) m = -  for each P' in S(P) v = -(min-max(P')) if m < v then m = v return m }

35. Game Tree search techniques • Min-max search • Assume optimal play on both sides • Pruning • The alpha-beta procedure: Next!

36. Alpha-Beta Pruning • Track expectations. • Use 2 variables  and to prune the tree •  – Best score so far at a max node • Value increases as we see more children •  – Best score so far at a min node • Value decreases as we see more children

37. Alpha-beta • What pruning is always possible? Max=2 (want >) Min Max 2 2 2 7

38. Alpha-beta • What pruning is always possible? Max=2 (want >) Min=1 (want <) Max • The root already has a value  larger than the current minimizing value . • Therefore there is no point in finding a better minimum. Prune! 2 2 1 1 2 7

39. Alpha Beta Example Max  > ! Min  =10 10  = 12 Max 10 12 Min 10 2 12

40. Alpha Beta Example  > !  = 10 Max 10 Min 10  =7 7 Max 10 12 7 Min 10 2 12 2 7

41. alphaBeta (,) The top level call: ReturnalphaBeta (- ,)) alphaBeta (,): • At leaf level (depth limit is reached): • Assign estimator function value (in the range (- .. ) to the leaf node. • Return this value. • At a min level (opponent moves): • For each child, until: • Set  = min(, alphaBeta (,)) • Return. • At a max level (our move): • For each child, until: • Set  = max(, alphaBeta (,)) • Return.

42. Alpha-Beta Pseudo Code AB(,,P){ if P is terminal, return v(P)1 =  for each P' in S(P) v = -AB(- , - 1 , P') if 1 < v then 1 = v if 1 >=  then return 1 return 1 }

43. Heuristic search techniques • Alpha-beta is one way to prune the game tree…

44. X O O X O X OOXO O X X O X OO Heuristic search techniques 1. Organize search to eliminate large sets of possibilities • Pruning strategies remove subtrees (alpha-beta) • Transposition strategiescombine multiple states, exploiting symmetries • Memoizing techniques remember states previously explored • Also, eliminate loops

45. Heuristic search techniques 2. Explore decisions in order of likely success • Guide search with estimator functions that correlate with likely search outcomes 3. Save time by guessing search outcomes • Use estimator functions

46. Heuristic search techniques 4. Put resources into promising approaches • Go deeper for more promising moves 5. Consider progressive deepening • Breadth-first: find a most plausible move; then do deeper search to improve confidence.

47. Summary • Backtracking • Organized brute force • Answer to problem = set of successive decisions • When stuck, go back, try the remaining alternatives • No optimality guarantees

48. Summary • Game playing • Game trees • Mini-max algorithm • Optimization • Heuristics search • Alpha-beta pruning

49. Homework 6 Reminder ! • HW6 is out ! • Build an Othello Player • Part I: Build a board (game state) class • Part II: Build a player which uses mini-max and alpha-beta • Part III: Competition

50. State-of-the-art: Backgammon • Gerald Tesauro (IBM) • Wrote a program which became “overnight” the best player in the world • Not easy!