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On Board-Filling Games with Random-Turn Order and Monte Carlo Perfectness

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Book cover Advances in Computer Games (ACG 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 7168))

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Abstract

In a game, pure Monte Carlo search with parameter T means that for each feasible move T random games are generated. The move with the best average score is played. We call a game “Monte Carlo perfect” when this straightforward procedure converges to perfect play for each position, when T goes to infinity. Many popular games like Go, Hex, and Amazons are NOT Monte Carlo perfect.

In this paper, two-player zero-sum games are investigated where the turn-order is random: always a fair coin flip decides which player acts in the next move. A whole class of such random-turn games is proven to be Monte Carlo perfect. The result and generalisations are discussed, with example games ranging from very abstract to very concrete.

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Althöfer, I. (2012). On Board-Filling Games with Random-Turn Order and Monte Carlo Perfectness. In: van den Herik, H.J., Plaat, A. (eds) Advances in Computer Games. ACG 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7168. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31866-5_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31866-5_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31865-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31866-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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