Doubt regarding the Minimax algorithm

Question

The Minimax, by definition, is great if both players act great, right? However, can we say something when one of them plays great and the other doesn’t? In the case of the game of old, as the space of states is small, the player who acts with Minimax never loses to a random player by being able to explore the entire search tree. And in the case of a game with more space, as checkers? What can we say when a player makes bad moves against another who acts with Minimax? Minimax won’t be any better, that’s right?

By Definition, the Minimax Algorithm is optimal only if the two players that are playing Against each other perform optimally, isn’t it? However, can we Say Something when one of them plays optimal and the other does not? More precisely, what can we Say when a player makes bad plays (bad moves) Against Another player with Minimax with the Aim that the Minimax player plays Worse (make some bad moves)? Thanks!!

Answer 1

The Minimax Algorithm is great in the sense that it will always make the move that minimizes the maximum loss (so it’s called Minimax), this fact is independent of how the other player plays, of course depending on the played adverśario, the response that minimizes the maximum loss may be different, but the algorithm always chooses the optimal move for it in that situation, it is important to note that great means best possible and not the perfect move, it is possible to play optimally and lose (or tie) the game, simply because the lowest possible maximum loss is greater than 0. Thus, the answer to your question is: Regardless of the opponent, Minimax will always make the optimal move, with the metric being the lowest possible loss, for games with the largest search space, the tree becomes very large, in these cases other algorithms are used (such as the alpha-beta prunning) which is a variation of Minimax.