Alpha–beta pruning

Alpha–beta pruning is a way of figuring out which moves are the most important in a game. It helps a computer playing a game like chess make smarter decisions by telling it which moves it shouldn't bother looking at. Imagine a game of chess with lots of possible moves. Alpha–beta pruning looks at all the possible moves, and then figures out which ones aren't worth looking at because they don't lead to a good outcome. It can help the computer make its decisions much faster.