English

A biased edge coloring game

Combinatorics 2025-02-18 v2

Abstract

We combine the ideas of edge coloring games and asymmetric graph coloring games and define the \emph{(m,1)(m,1)-edge coloring game}, which is alternatively played by two players Maker and Breaker on a finite simple graph GG with a set of colors XX. Maker plays first and colors mm uncolored edges on each turn. Breaker colors only one uncolored edge on each turn. They make sure that adjacent edges get distinct colors. Maker wins if eventually every edge is colored; Breaker wins if at some point, the player who is playing cannot color any edge. We define the \emph{(m,1)(m,1)-game chromatic index} of GG to be the smallest nonnegative integer kk such that Maker has a winning strategy with X=k|X|=k. We give some general upper bounds on the (m,1)(m,1)-game chromatic indices of trees, determine the exact (m,1)(m,1)-game chromatic indices of some caterpillars and all wheels, and show that larger mm does not necessarily give us smaller (m,1)(m,1)-game chromatic index.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2408.02819,
  title  = {A biased edge coloring game},
  author = {Runze Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.02819},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

fixed an error; did some minor modifications

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:04:47.606Z