Score-Based Equilibrium Learning in Multi-Player Finite Games with Imperfect Information

Abstract: Real-world games, which concern imperfect information, multiple players, and simultaneous moves, are less frequently discussed in the existing literature of game theory. While reinforcement learning (RL) provides a general framework to extend the game theoretical algorithms, the assumptions that guarantee their convergence towards Nash equilibria may no longer hold in real-world games. Starting from the definition of the Nash distribution, we construct a continuous-time dynamic named imperfect-information exponential-decay score-based learning (IESL) to find approximate Nash equilibria in games with the above-mentioned features. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that IESL yields equilibrium-approaching policies in imperfect information simultaneous games with the basic assumption of concavity. Experimental results show that IESL manages to find approximate Nash equilibria in four canonical poker scenarios and significantly outperforms three other representative algorithms in 3-player Leduc poker, manifesting its equilibrium-finding ability even in practical sequential games. Furthermore, related to the concept of game hypomonotonicity, a trade-off between the convergence of the IESL dynamic and the ultimate NashConv of the convergent policies is observed from the perspectives of both theory and experiment.