average regret
Alternating Mirror Descent for Constrained Min-Max Games
In this paper we study two-player bilinear zero-sum games with constrained strategy spaces. An instance of natural occurrences of such constraints is when mixed strategies are used, which correspond to a probability simplex constraint. We propose and analyze the alternating mirror descent algorithm, in which each player takes turns to take action following the mirror descent algorithm for constrained optimization. We interpret alternating mirror descent as an alternating discretization of a skew-gradient flow in the dual space, and use tools from convex optimization and modified energy function to establish an $O(K^{-2/3})$ bound on its average regret after $K$ iterations. This quantitatively verifies the algorithm's better behavior than the simultaneous version of mirror descent algorithm, which is known to diverge and yields an $O(K^{-1/2})$ average regret bound. In the special case of an unconstrained setting, our results recover the behavior of alternating gradient descent algorithm for zero-sum games which was studied in (Bailey et al., COLT 2020).
Infinite-Dimensional Operator/Block Kaczmarz Algorithms: Regret Bounds and $ฮป$-Effectiveness
Jeong, Halyun, Jorgensen, Palle E. T., Kwon, Hyun-Kyoung, Song, Myung-Sin
We present a variety of projection-based linear regression algorithms with a focus on modern machine-learning models and their algorithmic performance. We study the role of the relaxation parameter in generalized Kaczmarz algorithms and establish a priori regret bounds with explicit $ฮป$-dependence to quantify how much an algorithm's performance deviates from its optimal performance. A detailed analysis of relaxation parameter is also provided. Applications include: explicit regret bounds for the framework of Kaczmarz algorithm models, non-orthogonal Fourier expansions, and the use of regret estimates in modern machine learning models, including for noisy data, i.e., regret bounds for the noisy Kaczmarz algorithms. Motivated by machine-learning practice, our wider framework treats bounded operators (on infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces), with updates realized as (block) Kaczmarz algorithms, leading to new and versatile results.