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We study two-player zero-sum stochastic games, and propose a form of independent learning dynamics called Doubly Smoothed Best-Response dynamics, which integrates a discrete and doubly smoothed variant of the best-response dynamics into…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-03-07 Zaiwei Chen , Kaiqing Zhang , Eric Mazumdar , Asuman Ozdaglar , Adam Wierman

This letter studies multi-agent reinforcement learning in partially observable Markov potential games. Solving this problem is challenging due to partial observability, decentralized information, and the curse of dimensionality. First, to…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2026-04-02 Wonseok Yang , Thinh T. Doan

We propose a stochastic first-order algorithm to learn the rationality parameters of simultaneous and non-cooperative potential games, i.e., the parameters of the agents' optimization problems. Our technique combines (i.) an active-set step…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-07-31 Stefan Clarke , Gabriele Dragotto , Jaime Fernández Fisac , Bartolomeo Stellato

Recent advances at the intersection of dense large graph limits and mean field games have begun to enable the scalable analysis of a broad class of dynamical sequential games with large numbers of agents. So far, results have been largely…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-02-21 Kai Cui , Heinz Koeppl

This paper discusses theoretical and experimental aspects of gradient-based approaches to the direct optimization of policy performance in controlled POMDPs. We introduce GPOMDP, a REINFORCE-like algorithm for estimating an approximation to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-08 Jonathan Baxter , Peter L. Bartlett

Bandit algorithms are guaranteed to solve diverse sequential decision-making problems, provided that a sufficient exploration budget is available. However, learning from scratch is often too costly for personalization tasks where a single…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Newton Mwai , Emil Carlsson , Fredrik D. Johansson

We obtain essentially tight upper bounds for a strengthened notion of regret in the stochastic linear bandits framework. The strengthening -- referred to as Nash regret -- is defined as the difference between the (a priori unknown) optimum…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-04 Ayush Sawarni , Soumybrata Pal , Siddharth Barman

We consider zero-sum stochastic games with finite state and action spaces, perfect information, mean payoff criteria, without any irreducibility assumption on the Markov chains associated to strategies (multichain games). The value of such…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2012-08-03 Marianne Akian , Jean Cochet-Terrasson , Sylvie Detournay , Stéphane Gaubert

Large language models can score well on named game-theory benchmarks while failing on the same strategic computation once semantic cues are removed. We show this gap with procedurally generated zero-sum matrix games: a model that recognizes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Wenhua Nie , Binhan Luo , Zijie Meng , Jyh-Shing Roger Jang , Ching-Wen Ma

In this paper, we consider a large class of constrained non-cooperative stochastic Markov games with countable state spaces and discounted cost criteria. In one-player case, i.e., constrained discounted Markov decision models, it is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-12-16 Anna Jaśkiewicz , Andrzej S. Nowak

For a real-world decision-making problem, the reward function often needs to be engineered or learned. A popular approach is to utilize human feedback to learn a reward function for training. The most straightforward way to do so is to ask…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Xiang Ji , Huazheng Wang , Minshuo Chen , Tuo Zhao , Mengdi Wang

Originating in evolutionary game theory, the class of "zero-determinant" strategies enables a player to unilaterally enforce linear payoff relationships in simple repeated games. An upshot of this kind of payoff constraint is that it can…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-11-26 Nikos Dimou , Alex McAvoy

We study the problem of repeated play in a zero-sum game in which the payoff matrix may change, in a possibly adversarial fashion, on each round; we call these Online Matrix Games. Finding the Nash Equilibrium (NE) of a two player zero-sum…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-06 Adrian Rivera Cardoso , Jacob Abernethy , He Wang , Huan Xu

Graph games provide the foundation for modeling and synthesizing reactive processes. In the synthesis of stochastic reactive processes, the traditional model is perfect-information stochastic games, where some transitions of the game graph…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2016-04-22 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Laurent Doyen

In this paper, we consider several finite-horizon Bayesian multi-armed bandit problems with side constraints which are computationally intractable (NP-Hard) and for which no optimal (or near optimal) algorithms are known to exist with…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2013-07-18 Sudipto Guha , Kamesh Munagala

In cooperative game theory, the primary focus is the equitable allocation of payoffs or costs among agents. However, in the practical applications of cooperative games, accurately representing games is challenging. In such cases, using an…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-05-21 Soh Kumabe , Yuichi Yoshida

We introduce a new algorithm for the numerical computation of Nash equilibria of competitive two-player games. Our method is a natural generalization of gradient descent to the two-player setting where the update is given by the Nash…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-07-02 Florian Schäfer , Anima Anandkumar

In this paper we consider the problem of learning the optimal policy for uncontrolled restless bandit problems. In an uncontrolled restless bandit problem, there is a finite set of arms, each of which when pulled yields a positive reward.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-01-30 Cem Tekin , Mingyan Liu

We consider the problem of simultaneous learning in stochastic games with many players in the finite-horizon setting. While the typical target solution for a stochastic game is a Nash equilibrium, this is intractable with many players. We…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-10-27 William Brown

In this work, we study potential games and Markov potential games under stochastic cost and bandit feedback. We propose a variant of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm with sufficient exploration and recursive gradient estimation, which provably…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-11 Jing Dong , Baoxiang Wang , Yaoliang Yu