{"id":417,"date":"2011-11-21T18:40:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T18:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/?p=417"},"modified":"2023-02-27T18:26:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T18:26:35","slug":"its-all-just-a-game-for-cecs-research-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/2011\/11\/21\/its-all-just-a-game-for-cecs-research-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s all just a game for CECS research fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Lorentz<\/em><\/p>\n

\"LorentzRichard.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Computer science professor Richard Lorentz takes his games seriously. But you won\u2019t find him glued to a PlayStation or engrossed in the latest version of The Sims. In Lorentz\u2019s world, games are an outstanding vehicle for testing computer algorithms, and as the college\u2019s 2011-12 research fellow, he\u2019ll be spending the spring semester studying the merits of different algorithms in computerized versions of three lesser-known board games: Amazons, Havannah and EinStein w\u00fcrfelt nicht.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an ongoing project I\u2019ve been working on for years and will continue for years,\u201d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His project focuses on algorithms called minimax and Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS). In the past, most computer board games relied on minimax, which arrives at the best move by considering the player\u2019s possible options, the opponent\u2019s possible responses, the player\u2019s responses to these responses, and so on, eventually accessing the potential advantage each move will provide the player. While it worked well in games like chess, for complex games like the classic Japanese game Go, it created a hopeless bottleneck. MCTS, by contrast, plays many random games, and the move that does best across the random games is the one the player\u2014in this case a computer\u2014is \u201chappiest\u201d with.<\/p>\n

The difference between the two algorithms is striking. Before the discovery of MCTS about six years ago, someone who had been playing Go for four or five months could beat the best computer games. Using MCTS, however, a computer can play Go at the level of the top club players. \u201cMCTS has revolutionized a lot of games,\u201d Lorentz says.<\/p>\n

\"LorentzWaldmannflat.jpg\"Richard and Nohannes Waldmann discussing abstract game programming in Ingo Althofer\u2019s apartment, Jena, Germany.<\/em><\/p>\n

The catch is that no one knows why it performs so well. \u201cMonte Carlo tree search does better than we think it should,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Lorentz has been studying variations of the MCTS algorithm for some time, and his Amazons program, a blend of minimax and MCTS, is the current world champion. For his research project, he will expand his investigation to additional games, in collaboration with students, who will learn the algorithms, how to implement them efficiently and modify them for the task at hand\u2014skills they can adapt to the workplace whenever they need to implement an algorithm they are unfamiliar with.<\/p>\n

Lorentz\u2019s own aim, while less pragmatic, could eventually prove transformative. \u201cMy ultimate goal is solving the mystery of why MCTS is working so well,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Lorentz Computer science professor Richard Lorentz takes his games seriously. But you won\u2019t find him glued to a PlayStation or engrossed in the latest version of The Sims. In Lorentz\u2019s world, games are an outstanding vehicle for testing computer algorithms, and as the college\u2019s 2011-12 research fellow, he\u2019ll be spending the spring semester studying the merits of different algorithms in computerized versions of three lesser-known board games: Amazons, Havannah and EinStein w\u00fcrfelt nicht. \u201cThis is an ongoing project I\u2019ve been working on for years and will continue for years,\u201d he says. His project focuses on algorithms called minimax and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions\/418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecs.csun.edu\/spectra\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}