English

A Random-Player Game and Derangement Numbers

Combinatorics 2024-03-26 v4 Probability

Abstract

Consider the following game between a random player R and a deterministic player D. There is a pile of n elements at the beginning. The rules for playing are as follows: In each turn of R, if the pile contains exactly m elements, R removes k elements from the pile, where k is independently identically distributed from {1, . . . , m}. In each turn of D, D removes only one element. The winner is the player that, at the end of its round, has no elements remaining. R starts first to play. This short paper shows that Dn, which is defined as the probability of D winning the game (when is initialized with n elements), approaches 1/e when n increases; and more specifically, Dn = dn/n!, where dn is the n-th derangement number.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2402.10246,
  title  = {A Random-Player Game and Derangement Numbers},
  author = {Yehonatan Fridman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.10246},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

5 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:50:03.427Z