Hyper-parameter Optimization for Monte Carlo Tree Search using Self-play

The Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is a popular method for implementing an intelligent game program. It has several hyper-parameters that require an optimization for showing the best performance. Due to the stochastic nature of the MCTS, the hyper-parameter optimization is difficult to solve. This paper uses the self-playing capability of the MCTS-based game program for optimizing the hyper-parameters. It seeks a winner path over the hyper-parameter space while performing the self-play. The top-q longest winners in the winner path compete for the final winner. The experiment using the 15-15-5 game (Omok in Korean name) showed a promising result.