A parallel Monte-Carlo tree search algorithm

Abstract

Monte-Carlo Tree Search is a powerful paradigm for the game of Go. In this contribution we present a parallel Master-Slave algorithm for Monte-Carlo Tree Search and test it on a network of computers using various configurations: from 12,500 to 100,000 playouts, from 1 to 64 slaves, and from 1 to 16 computers. On our own architecture we obtain a speedup of 14 for 16 slaves. With a single slave and five seconds per move our algorithm scores 40.5% against GNU Go, with sixteen slaves and five seconds per move it scores 70.5%. At the end we give the potential speedups of our algorithm for various playout times. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.