Related papers: Solving Zero-Sum Games through Alternating Project…
We study a wide class of non-convex non-concave min-max games that generalizes over standard bilinear zero-sum games. In this class, players control the inputs of a smooth function whose output is being applied to a bilinear zero-sum game.…
While discounted payoff games and classic games that reduce to them, like parity and mean-payoff games, are symmetric, their solutions are not. We have taken a fresh view on the properties that optimal solutions need to have, and devised a…
Two of the most prominent algorithms for solving unconstrained smooth games are the classical stochastic gradient descent-ascent (SGDA) and the recently introduced stochastic consensus optimization (SCO) [Mescheder et al., 2017]. SGDA is…
We show that, for any sufficiently small fixed $\epsilon > 0$, when both players in a general-sum two-player (bimatrix) game employ optimistic mirror descent (OMD) with smooth regularization, learning rate $\eta = O(\epsilon^2)$ and $T =…
We study the problem of convergence to a stationary point in zero-sum games. We propose competitive gradient optimization (CGO ), a gradient-based method that incorporates the interactions between the two players in zero-sum games for…
We provide several applications of Optimistic Mirror Descent, an online learning algorithm based on the idea of predictable sequences. First, we recover the Mirror Prox algorithm for offline optimization, prove an extension to Holder-smooth…
We propose a projected variational quantum extragradient (VQEG) framework for computing approximate Nash equilibria in two-player zero-sum matrix games. Mixed strategies are parameterized as Born distributions of parameterized quantum…
We consider the problem of computing mixed Nash equilibria of two-player zero-sum games with continuous sets of pure strategies and with first-order access to the payoff function. This problem arises for example in game-theory-inspired…
We study the iteration complexity of the optimistic gradient descent-ascent (OGDA) method and the extra-gradient (EG) method for finding a saddle point of a convex-concave unconstrained min-max problem. To do so, we first show that both…
Alternating gradient-descent-ascent (AltGDA) is an optimization algorithm that has been widely used for model training in various machine learning applications, which aims to solve a nonconvex minimax optimization problem. However, the…
Min-max optimization problems arise in several key machine learning setups, including adversarial learning and generative modeling. In their general form, in absence of convexity/concavity assumptions, finding pure equilibria of the…
Games generalize the single-objective optimization paradigm by introducing different objective functions for different players. Differentiable games often proceed by simultaneous or alternating gradient updates. In machine learning, games…
We address the issue of limit cycling behavior in training Generative Adversarial Networks and propose the use of Optimistic Mirror Decent (OMD) for training Wasserstein GANs. Recent theoretical results have shown that optimistic mirror…
A recent method for solving zero-sum partially observable stochastic games (zs-POSGs) embeds the original game into a new one called the occupancy Markov game. This reformulation allows applying Bellman's principle of optimality to solve…
We introduce, to our knowledge, the first direct second-order method for computing Nash equilibria in two-player zero-sum games. To do so, we construct a Douglas-Rachford-style splitting formulation, which we then solve with a semi-smooth…
Computing Nash equilibrium (NE) of multi-player games has witnessed renewed interest due to recent advances in generative adversarial networks. However, computing equilibrium efficiently is challenging. To this end, we introduce the…
We study the problem of finding the Nash equilibrium in a two-player zero-sum Markov game. Due to its formulation as a minimax optimization program, a natural approach to solve the problem is to perform gradient descent/ascent with respect…
We tackle a fundamental problem in empirical game-theoretic analysis (EGTA), that of learning equilibria of simulation-based games. Such games cannot be described in analytical form; instead, a black-box simulator can be queried to obtain…
Zero-sum and non-zero-sum (aka general-sum) games are relevant in a wide range of applications. While general non-zero-sum games are computationally hard, researchers focus on the special class of monotone games for gradient-based…
Motivated by the pursuit of a systematic computational and algorithmic understanding of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), we present a simple yet unified non-asymptotic local convergence theory for smooth two-player games, which…