English

$(1,2)$-GDWN splits

Combinatorics 2012-06-21 v1

Abstract

We study impartial take away games on 2 unordered piles of finite nonnegative numbers of tokens (x,y)(x,y). Two players alternate in removing at least one and at most all tokens from the respective piles, according to certain rules, and the game terminates when a player in turn is unable to move. We follow the normal play convention, which means that a player who cannot move loses. In the game of Wythoff Nim, a player is allowed to remove either any number of tokens from precisely one of the piles or the same number of tokens from both. Let ϕ=1+52\phi = \frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2} and for all nonnegative integers nn, An=ϕnA_n=\lfloor\phi n \rfloor and Bn=An+nB_n=A_n+n. The P-positions of Wythoff Nim are all pairs of piles with AnA_n and BnB_n tokens respectively. We study a generalization of this game called (1,2)\G(1,2)\G where, in addition to the rules of Wythoff Nim, a player has the choice to remove a positive number of tokens from one of the piles and twice that number from the other pile. We show that there is an infinite sector αy/xα+ϵ\alpha \le y/x \le \alpha +\epsilon, for given real numbers α>1\alpha>1 and ϵ>0\epsilon > 0, for which each (x,y)(x,y) is an N-position, but that there are infinitely many P-positions for both 1y/x<α1\le y/x <\alpha and α+ϵ<y/x\alpha +\epsilon < y/x . This proves a conjecture from a recent paper. Namely, the adjoined set of moves in (1,2)\G(1,2)\G \emph{splits} the beam of slope ϕ\phi P-positions of Wythoff Nim. We also provide a lower bound on the lower asymtotic density of lower pile heights of P-positions for extensions of Wythoff Nim. Suppose that (ai)(a_i) and (bi)(b_i), i>0i>0, is a pair of so-called complementary sequences on the natural numbers which satisfy (ai)(a_i) is increasing and for all ii, ai<bia_i<b_i, for all iji\ne j, biaibjajb_i-a_i\ne b_j-a_j. Then \liminf_{n\rightarrow \infty}\frac{#\{i\mid a_i < n\}}{n} \ge \phi^{-1}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1206.4485,
  title  = {$(1,2)$-GDWN splits},
  author = {Urban Larsson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.4485},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

15 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:22:28.499Z