Parallelizing Counterfactual Regret Minimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kim, Juho, Sandholm, Tuomas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Kim, Juho
Sandholm, Tuomas
author_facet Kim, Juho
Sandholm, Tuomas
contents Parallelization has played an instrumental role in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), drastically reducing the time taken to train and evaluate large AI models. In contrast to its impact in the broader field of AI, applying parallelization to computational game solving is relatively unexplored, despite its great potential. In this paper, we parallelize the family of counterfactual regret minimization (CFR) algorithms, which were central to important breakthroughs for solving large imperfect-information games. We present a generalized parallelization framework, reframing CFR as a series of linear algebra operations. Then, existing techniques for parallelizing linear algebra operations can be applied to accelerate CFR. We also describe how our technique can be applied to other tabular members of the CFR family of algorithms, including the state-of-the-art, such as CFR+, discounted CFR, and predictive variants of CFR. Experimentally, we show that our CFR implementation on a GPU is up to four orders of magnitude faster than Google DeepMind OpenSpiel's CFR implementations on a CPU.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_14277
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Parallelizing Counterfactual Regret Minimization
Kim, Juho
Sandholm, Tuomas
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science and Game Theory
Parallelization has played an instrumental role in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), drastically reducing the time taken to train and evaluate large AI models. In contrast to its impact in the broader field of AI, applying parallelization to computational game solving is relatively unexplored, despite its great potential. In this paper, we parallelize the family of counterfactual regret minimization (CFR) algorithms, which were central to important breakthroughs for solving large imperfect-information games. We present a generalized parallelization framework, reframing CFR as a series of linear algebra operations. Then, existing techniques for parallelizing linear algebra operations can be applied to accelerate CFR. We also describe how our technique can be applied to other tabular members of the CFR family of algorithms, including the state-of-the-art, such as CFR+, discounted CFR, and predictive variants of CFR. Experimentally, we show that our CFR implementation on a GPU is up to four orders of magnitude faster than Google DeepMind OpenSpiel's CFR implementations on a CPU.
title Parallelizing Counterfactual Regret Minimization
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.14277