arXiv Computation and Language

Disentangling generalization and memorization in large language models using chess

arXiv AI
Oct 12

SpireBench: Evaluating Long-Horizon Strategic Play of Agentic Models with Slay the Spire

SpireBench evaluates long‑horizon strategic play by having large language models play the full commercial deck‑builder Slay the Spire, a game where early choices determine long‑term success. Across 20 LLMs at the highest difficulty, frontier models beat heuristic baselines and match average human performance but lag far behind experts, especially as runs lengthen. The benchmark reveals that strong models excel in early fights but misjudge risk over a run, and that their performance depends partly on prior game knowledge rather than on memories written during play.

By Scott C. Lowe, Sander W. Keemink
arXiv AI
Aug 6

Hallucinations on the Board: Tool-Augmented Evaluation of LLM Chess Commentary

arXiv:2608. 04240v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Superhuman game engines in domains like chess have made expert-level evaluations easily accessible, yet they communicate what is true without the natural-language explanations that make such expertise educationally useful to experts and non-experts alike.

By S. Ashwin Hebbar, Peiyao Sheng, Sewoong Oh, Pramod Viswanath
arXiv AI
Jul 16

Representation-Based Exploration for Language Models: From Test-Time to Post-Training

arXiv:2510. 11686v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) promises to expand the capabilities of language models, but it is unclear if current RL techniques promote the discovery of novel behaviors, or simply sharpen those already present in the base model.

By Jens Tuyls, Dylan J. Foster, Akshay Krishnamurthy, Jordan T. Ash