Brute Force is essentially just searching every possible combination but how is minimax any different? Minimax searches every combination as well and then returns the best score?
I understand that when we used alpha beta pruning we take out ones that will have no effect on our min/max value but this occurs after we have already performed minimax so would this be considered brute force? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I've been reading so far, so any help would be great!
Thank You!
Alpha-beta pruning does not occur "after" minimax, it occurs "during" minimax. And the pruning does in fact eliminate a vast number of "combinations" -- down to sqrt of the brute-force minimax number in the best case, n^(3/4) in the average case.