Book Image

The Reinforcement Learning Workshop

By : Alessandro Palmas, Emanuele Ghelfi, Dr. Alexandra Galina Petre, Mayur Kulkarni, Anand N.S., Quan Nguyen, Aritra Sen, Anthony So, Saikat Basak
Book Image

The Reinforcement Learning Workshop

By: Alessandro Palmas, Emanuele Ghelfi, Dr. Alexandra Galina Petre, Mayur Kulkarni, Anand N.S., Quan Nguyen, Aritra Sen, Anthony So, Saikat Basak

Overview of this book

Various intelligent applications such as video games, inventory management software, warehouse robots, and translation tools use reinforcement learning (RL) to make decisions and perform actions that maximize the probability of the desired outcome. This book will help you to get to grips with the techniques and the algorithms for implementing RL in your machine learning models. Starting with an introduction to RL, youÔÇÖll be guided through different RL environments and frameworks. YouÔÇÖll learn how to implement your own custom environments and use OpenAI baselines to run RL algorithms. Once youÔÇÖve explored classic RL techniques such as Dynamic Programming, Monte Carlo, and TD Learning, youÔÇÖll understand when to apply the different deep learning methods in RL and advance to deep Q-learning. The book will even help you understand the different stages of machine-based problem-solving by using DARQN on a popular video game Breakout. Finally, youÔÇÖll find out when to use a policy-based method to tackle an RL problem. By the end of The Reinforcement Learning Workshop, youÔÇÖll be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to solve challenging problems using reinforcement learning.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Preface
Free Chapter
2
2. Markov Decision Processes and Bellman Equations

Understanding Monte Carlo with Blackjack

Blackjack is a simple card game that is quite popular in casinos. It is a great game, as it is simple to simulate and take samples, and lends itself to Monte Carlo methods. Blackjack is also available as part of the OpenAI framework. Players and the dealer are dealt two cards each. The dealer shows one card face up and lays the other card face down. The players and the dealer have a choice of whether to be dealt additional cards or not:

  • The aim of the game: To obtain cards whose sum is close to or equal to 21 but not greater than 21.
  • Players: There are two players, called the player and the dealer.
  • The start of the game: The player is dealt with two cards. The dealer is also dealt with two cards, and the rest of the cards are pooled into a stack. One of the dealer's cards is shown to the player.
  • Possible actionsstick or hit: "Stick" is to stop asking for more cards. "Hit" is to ask for more...