Stratagem: Learning Transferable Reasoning via Trajectory-Modulated Game Self-Play

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Summary

STRATAGEM is a new framework for improving reasoning transferability in language models by using game self-play with a Reasoning Transferability Coefficient and Reasoning Evolution Reward to reinforce abstract, domain-agnostic reasoning patterns over game-specific heuristics. Experiments show strong improvements on mathematical reasoning, general reasoning, and code generation benchmarks.

Games offer a compelling paradigm for developing general reasoning capabilities in language models, as they naturally demand strategic planning, probabilistic inference, and adaptive decision-making. However, existing self-play approaches rely solely on terminal game outcomes, providing no mechanism to distinguish transferable reasoning patterns from game-specific heuristics. We present STRATAGEM, which addresses two fundamental barriers to reasoning transfer: domain specificity, where learned patterns remain anchored in game semantics, and contextual stasis, where static game contexts fail to cultivate progressive reasoning. STRATAGEM selectively reinforces trajectories exhibiting abstract, domain-agnostic reasoning through a Reasoning Transferability Coefficient, while incentivizing adaptive reasoning development via a Reasoning Evolution Reward. Experiments across mathematical reasoning, general reasoning, and code generation benchmarks demonstrate substantial improvements, with particularly strong gains on competition-level mathematics where multi-step reasoning is critical. Ablation studies and human evaluation confirm that both components contribute to transferable reasoning.
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Abstract

STRATAGEM addresses limitations in reasoning transfer for language models by using a reasoning transferability coefficient and evolution reward to promote abstract, domain-agnostic patterns over game-specific heuristics.

Games offer a compelling paradigm for developing general reasoning capabilities in language models, as they naturally demandstrategic planning,probabilistic inference, andadaptive decision-making. However, existingself-playapproaches rely solely on terminal game outcomes, providing no mechanism to distinguish transferable reasoning patterns from game-specific heuristics. We present STRATAGEM, which addresses two fundamental barriers to reasoning transfer:domain specificity, where learned patterns remain anchored in game semantics, andcontextual stasis, where static game contexts fail to cultivate progressive reasoning. STRATAGEM selectively reinforces trajectories exhibiting abstract, domain-agnostic reasoning through aReasoning Transferability Coefficient, while incentivizing adaptive reasoning development via aReasoning Evolution Reward. Experiments across mathematical reasoning, general reasoning, and code generation benchmarks demonstrate substantial improvements, with particularly strong gains on competition-level mathematics wheremulti-step reasoningis critical. Ablation studies and human evaluation confirm that both components contribute to transferable reasoning.

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