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Add teacher-student policy distillation colab for AlphaZero on Tic-Tac-Toe - #1580

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Add teacher-student policy distillation colab for AlphaZero on Tic-Tac-Toe#1580
bbrianxiao wants to merge 1 commit into
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bbrianxiao:alpha_zero_policy_distillation

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@bbrianxiao

@bbrianxiao bbrianxiao commented Jul 26, 2026

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Add a teacher-student policy distillation colab (AlphaZero, Tic-Tac-Toe)

Adds open_spiel/colabs/alpha_zero_policy_distillation.ipynb: trains an AlphaZero
teacher from scratch, distills it into a much smaller network, and measures how
much strength survives. Uses the existing alpha_zero.alpha_zero() loop and the
existing model_nnx.py Model for both teacher and student.

agent params vs minimax exact regret
random baseline - 0.055 0.4212
student (distilled) 3,338 0.485 0.0872
teacher-raw 338,698 0.485 0.0867
teacher+MCTS 338,698 0.500 0.0033
  • Student matches its teacher at 101.5x fewer parameters (0.0872 vs 0.0867).
  • Search accounts for a ~26x blunder reduction that win/draw/loss cannot see —
    those two agents differ by 3 games in 100, and the direction flips between runs.

@alexunderch

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Good one! Clear ipython outputs if possible, please

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