Game Trees & Minimax

Assume your opponent is clever

An interactive lesson with 6 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Minimax: Min takes the smallest, Max the largest, working up from the leaves.
• It finds the best guaranteed result against a perfect opponent.
• Small games (tic-tac-toe, draughts) are solved; chess is far too big.

Steps

1. Looking ahead
2. Choose a branch
3. Noughts and crosses
4. Solved
5. Pruning the tree
6. Too big for minimax