arXiv AI

The Surprising Effectiveness of Approximate Value Iteration in Self-Play

arXiv AI
Sep 17

Online Robust Reinforcement Learning Through Monte-Carlo Planning

The paper introduces a robust variant of Monte Carlo Tree Search that addresses ambiguities in transition dynamics and reward distributions, bridging the gap between simulation-based planning and real-world deployment. It incorporates a robust power mean backup operator and exploration bonuses to guarantee finite-sample convergence at every node, achieving an ≠O(n−1/2) convergence rate for root value estimation comparable to standard MCTS. Empirical results demonstrate robust performance in planning tasks even under significant model mismatches.

By Tuan Dam, Kishan Panaganti, Brahim Driss, Adam Wierman
arXiv AI
Oct 7

BluffJAX: Adversarial Imperfect Information Games in JAX

BluffJAX is an open‑source suite of adversarial imperfect‑information games implemented in JAX, designed for high‑throughput simulation and GPU parallelization. It includes classic benchmarks like Texas Hold’Em and Kuhn Poker, as well as newer games such as Bluff, Stud Poker, and Kemps, aiming to broaden research in game‑theoretic reinforcement learning. The authors benchmarked throughput, memory usage, and algorithmic performance across single and multi‑GPU setups, showing scalability to hundreds of millions of samples per second and providing baseline results for future work.

By Aryaman Reddi, Jan Peters, Carlo D'Eramo
arXiv AI
Sep 4

Local Updates, Global Learning (LUGL): Playing Games with non-incremental Learners

The paper introduces LUGL (Local Updates, Global Learning), a framework that separates data collection from model fitting, allowing non‑incremental learners such as gradient‑boosted trees (LightGBM) to be used in reinforcement learning for games. LUGL alternates between a local update phase—where agents play self‑play games and store tabular updates—and a global learning phase—where a function approximator is trained on the accumulated table before it is reset. Experiments on both perfect‑information and imperfect‑information games show that LightGBM‑based agents perform competitively or better than neural‑network baselines like DQN and DeepCFR.

By David Milec, Spyridon Samothrakis, Michael Fairbank, Dennis J. N. J. Soemers
arXiv AI
Jun 24

EMAgnet: Parameter-Space EMA Regularization for Policy Gradient Self-Play in Large Games

arXiv:2606. 23995v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Recent work has established that regularized policy gradient methods such as PPO, when used in self-play, can match or exceed specialized game-theoretic algorithms for solving two-player zero-sum imperfect-information games.

By Tristan Maidment, JB Lanier, Chase McDonald, Nathan Tsang, Eugene Vinitsky, Roy Fox, Albert Wang, Wesley N. Kerr
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Sep 3

Local Updates, Global Learning (LUGL): Playing Games with non-incremental Learners

The paper introduces Local Updates, Global Learning (LUGL), a framework that separates data collection from model training, allowing non‑incremental learners such as gradient‑boosted trees (LightGBM) to be used in reinforcement learning for games. LUGL alternates between a local phase—where self‑play generates tabular updates—and a global phase—where these updates train a function approximator before resetting the table. Experiments on both perfect‑information and imperfect‑information games show that LightGBM agents perform competitively or better than neural‑network baselines like DQN and DeepCFR.