Convergence of Monte Carlo Tree Search in Simultaneous Move Games

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 26 (NIPS 2013)

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Authors

Viliam Lisy, Vojta Kovarik, Marc Lanctot, Branislav Bosansky

Abstract

In this paper, we study Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) in zero-sum extensive-form games with perfect information and simultaneous moves. We present a general template of MCTS algorithms for these games, which can be instantiated by various selection methods. We formally prove that if a selection method is $\epsilon$-Hannan consistent in a matrix game and satisfies additional requirements on exploration, then the MCTS algorithm eventually converges to an approximate Nash equilibrium (NE) of the extensive-form game. We empirically evaluate this claim using regret matching and Exp3 as the selection methods on randomly generated and worst case games. We confirm the formal result and show that additional MCTS variants also converge to approximate NE on the evaluated games.