Smooth UCT Search in Computer Poker

Abstract

Self-play Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has been successful in many perfect-information two-player games. Although these methods have been extended to imperfect-information games, so far they have not achieved the same level of practical success or theoretical convergence guarantees as competing methods. In this paper we introduce Smooth UCT, a variant of the established Upper Confidence Bounds Applied to Trees (UCT) algorithm. Smooth UCT agents mix in their average policy during self-play and the resulting planning process resembles game-theoretic fictitious play. When applied to Kuhn and Leduc poker, Smooth UCT approached a Nash equilibrium, whereas UCT diverged. In addition, Smooth UCT outperformed UCT in Limit Texas Hold'em and won 3 silver medals in the 2014 Annual Computer Poker Competition.