Michael Liu
Nov 1 · 1 min read

The “empty board” is not a special case; it’s just another state. And just like in all states, “who’s next to move” is a property of that state. It just so happens that for the empty board, the property of “who’s next to move for this state” is also called “who’s first to move in this game”. But there’s nothing special about it.

So, the color of the root node depends on who’s first to move. In my example, blue’s first to move, so the root node is blue.

    Michael Liu

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    Primarily aspirational.