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Minibal: Balanced Game-Playing Without Opponent Modeling

Quentin Cohen-Solal, Tristan Cazenave · Mar 24, 2026 · Citations: 0

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How to use this paper page

Coverage: Stale

Use this page to decide whether the paper is strong enough to influence an eval design. It summarizes the abstract plus available structured metadata. If the signal is thin, use it as background context and compare it against stronger hub pages before making protocol choices.

Best use

Background context only

Metadata: Stale

Trust level

Provisional

Signals: Stale

What still needs checking

Structured extraction is still processing; current fields are metadata-first.

Signal confidence unavailable

Abstract

Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games. While highly powerful, these agents are ill-suited for human-AI interaction, as they consistently overwhelm human players, offering little enjoyment and limited educational value. This paper addresses the problem of balanced play, in which an agent challenges its opponent without either dominating or conceding. We introduce Minibal (Minimize & Balance), a variant of Minimax specifically designed for balanced play. Building on this concept, we propose several modifications of the Unbounded Minimax algorithm explicitly aimed at discovering balanced strategies. Experiments conducted across seven board games demonstrate that one variant consistently achieves the most balanced play, with average outcomes close to perfect balance. These results establish Minibal as a promising foundation for designing AI agents that are both challenging and engaging, suitable for both entertainment and serious games.

Use caution before copying this protocol

Use this page for context, then validate protocol choices against stronger HFEPX references before implementation decisions.

  • Structured extraction is still processing; current fields are metadata-first.
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HFEPX Relevance Assessment

Signal extraction is still processing. This page currently shows metadata-first guidance until structured protocol fields are ready.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A provisional background reference while structured extraction finishes.

Main weakness

Structured extraction is still processing; current fields are metadata-first.

Trust level

Provisional

Eval-Fit Score

Unavailable

Eval-fit score is unavailable until extraction completes.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Weak / implicit signal

HFEPX Fit

Provisional (processing)

Extraction confidence: Provisional

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What This Page Found In The Paper

Each field below shows whether the signal looked explicit, partial, or missing in the available metadata. Use this to judge what is safe to trust directly and what still needs full-paper validation.

Human Feedback Types

provisional

None explicit

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Evaluation Modes

provisional

None explicit

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

Validate eval design from full paper text.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Quality Controls

provisional

Not reported

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

No explicit QC controls found.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Benchmarks / Datasets

provisional

Not extracted

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

No benchmark anchors detected.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Reported Metrics

provisional

Not extracted

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

No metric anchors detected.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Rater Population

provisional

Unknown

Confidence: Provisional Best-effort inference

Rater source not explicitly reported.

Evidence snippet: Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Human Data Lens

This page is using abstract-level cues only right now. Treat the signals below as provisional.

  • Potential human-data signal: No explicit human-data keywords detected.
  • Potential benchmark anchors: No benchmark names detected in abstract.
  • Abstract highlights: 3 key sentence(s) extracted below.

Evaluation Lens

Evaluation fields are inferred from the abstract only.

  • Potential evaluation modes: No explicit eval keywords detected.
  • Potential metric signals: No metric keywords detected.
  • Confidence: Provisional (metadata-only fallback).

Research Brief

Metadata summary

Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • Recent advances in game AI, such as AlphaZero and Athénan, have achieved superhuman performance across a wide range of board games.
  • While highly powerful, these agents are ill-suited for human-AI interaction, as they consistently overwhelm human players, offering little enjoyment and limited educational value.
  • This paper addresses the problem of balanced play, in which an agent challenges its opponent without either dominating or conceding.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Check the full text for explicit evaluation design choices (raters, protocol, and metrics).
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended Queries

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