Completeness of Unbounded Best-First Minimax and Descent Minimax

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Cohen-Solal, Quentin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Cohen-Solal, Quentin
author_facet Cohen-Solal, Quentin
contents In this article, we focus on search algorithms for two-player perfect information games, whose objective is to determine the best possible strategy, and ideally a winning strategy. Unfortunately, some search algorithms for games in the literature are not able to always determine a winning strategy, even with an infinite search time. This is the case, for example, of the following algorithms: Unbounded Best-First Minimax and Descent Minimax, which are core algorithms in state-of-the-art knowledge-free reinforcement learning. They were then improved with the so-called completion technique. However, whether this technique sufficiently improves these algorithms to allow them to always determine a winning strategy remained an open question until now. To answer this question, we generalize the two algorithms (their versions using the completion technique), and we show that any algorithm of this class of algorithms computes the best strategy. Finally, we experimentally show that the completion technique improves winning performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_24572
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Completeness of Unbounded Best-First Minimax and Descent Minimax
Cohen-Solal, Quentin
Artificial Intelligence
In this article, we focus on search algorithms for two-player perfect information games, whose objective is to determine the best possible strategy, and ideally a winning strategy. Unfortunately, some search algorithms for games in the literature are not able to always determine a winning strategy, even with an infinite search time. This is the case, for example, of the following algorithms: Unbounded Best-First Minimax and Descent Minimax, which are core algorithms in state-of-the-art knowledge-free reinforcement learning. They were then improved with the so-called completion technique. However, whether this technique sufficiently improves these algorithms to allow them to always determine a winning strategy remained an open question until now. To answer this question, we generalize the two algorithms (their versions using the completion technique), and we show that any algorithm of this class of algorithms computes the best strategy. Finally, we experimentally show that the completion technique improves winning performance.
title Completeness of Unbounded Best-First Minimax and Descent Minimax
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24572