English

A Ring structure on the Class of Combinatorial Games

Combinatorics 2026-05-01 v1 Rings and Algebras

Abstract

J. Conway defined useful operations on the Class of combinatorial games and also introduced a notion of equivalence between games. Conway showed that, under his equivalence, games form a Group. However, Conway product is not well defined on equivalence classes of arbitrary games (though it is well defined for surreals). We consider an equivalence relation finer than Conway's and show that under such a relation combinatorial games actually form a Ring. We hint to other possible relations on the Class of combinatorial games.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.27847,
  title  = {A Ring structure on the Class of Combinatorial Games},
  author = {Harry Altman and Paolo Lipparini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.27847},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

20 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:43:34.862Z