Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Winter 2019
Best-Reply Search for the Landlord Poker Game
Yunkai Wang
SCS Honours Project Image
ABSTRACT
The landlord poker game, also known as Dou Dizhu, is one of the well-known poker games originated from China. The game is straightforward to start with, but to master the game, it will require mathematical and strategic thinking as well as carefully planned execution. Even though people have proposed a lot of simple strategies on how to play the game, for instance, always make the play which will consume the maximum number of cards, none of them seems to be powerful enough to win against a human player. Recently a lot of new game search algorithms have been invented and studied. Among these algorithms, there is an algorithm named Best-Reply Search, which is initially designed for a multiplayer game with perfect information. With certain modifications to the algorithm, i.e., calculating the opponent’s play using statistical probability, the algorithm can be applied to the landlord poker game. Therefore, the primary objective of this project is to adopt this emerging game search algorithm, to the landlord poker game, and compare this game search algorithm against those strategic AI players. This project also involves creating an easy-to-use mobile app that will allow humans to play against the AI player that is invented.