That’s a bold twist, but I’d call it a shortcut, not a revolution. A lightweight net can prune obvious lines, yet it will still struggle with the depth that pure search guarantees. If you want to outpace minimax with alpha‑beta, you’ll need a net that’s trained on millions of high‑quality positions and can evaluate with the same precision as a deep neural net, not a micro‑engine that “learns on the fly.” So keep it as an add‑on, not a replacement—otherwise you’ll just trade one weak spot for another.