English

Ramsey, Paper, Scissors

Combinatorics 2020-06-24 v2

Abstract

We introduce a graph Ramsey game called Ramsey, Paper, Scissors. This game has two players, Proposer and Decider. Starting from an empty graph on nn vertices, on each turn Proposer proposes a potential edge and Decider simultaneously decides (without knowing Proposer's choice) whether to add it to the graph. Proposer cannot propose an edge which would create a triangle in the graph. The game ends when Proposer has no legal moves remaining, and Proposer wins if the final graph has independence number at least ss. We prove a threshold phenomenon exists for this game by exhibiting randomized strategies for both players that are optimal up to constants. Namely, there exist constants 0<A<B0<A<B such that (under optimal play) Proposer wins with high probability if s<Anlogns<A\sqrt{n}\log{n}, while Decider wins with high probability if s>Bnlogns>B\sqrt{n}\log{n}. This is a factor of Θ(logn)\Theta(\sqrt{\log{n}}) larger than the lower bound coming from the off-diagonal Ramsey number r(3,s)r(3,s).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1906.01092,
  title  = {Ramsey, Paper, Scissors},
  author = {Jacob Fox and Xiaoyu He and Yuval Wigderson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.01092},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T09:40:02.500Z