Introducing the min-max algorithm

In order to understand the min-max algorithm, you should get familiar with game playing and game trees. Game playing can be classified as game trees. What is a game tree? A tree is made of a root node, and a root node has child nodes; each child node is subdivided into multiple children.

 

This forms a tree, and the terminal nodes are termed leaves, as shown in the following diagram:

In game play, our main goal is to win the game; in other words, we try to find the best possible solution by looking ahead in the game tree. The most important thing to note about playing a game is that we don't actually go down to a particular node (or down to a complete tree), and we don't play the entire game. We are at the root position, and we are looking for the best option that is available to us, in order to maximize our chances of winning the game.

Since we are performing game playing, we will take turns, just like in a game of chess or tic-tac-toe; we take a turn, and...