English

Random-Player Maker-Breaker games

Combinatorics 2016-03-15 v3 Probability

Abstract

In a (1:b)(1:b) Maker-Breaker game, a primary question is to find the maximal value of bb that allows Maker to win the game (that is, the critical bias bb^*). Erd\H{o}s conjectured that the critical bias for many Maker-Breaker games played on the edge set of KnK_n is the same as if both players claim edges randomly. Indeed, in many Maker-Breaker games, "Erd\H{o}s Paradigm" turned out to be true. Therefore, the next natural question to ask is the (typical) value of the critical bias for Maker-Breaker games where only one player claims edges randomly. A random-player Maker-Breaker game is a two-player game, played the same as an ordinary (biased) Maker-Breaker game, except that one player plays according to his best strategy and claims one element in each round, while the other plays randomly and claims bb elements. In fact, for every (ordinary) Maker-Breaker game, there are two different random-player versions; the (1:b)(1:b) random-Breaker game and the (m:1)(m:1) random-Maker game. We analyze the random-player version of several classical Maker-Breaker games such as the Hamilton cycle game, the perfect-matching game and the kk-vertex-connectivity game (played on the edge sets of KnK_n). For each of these games we find or estimate the asymptotic values of bb that allow each player to typically win the game. In fact, we provide the "smart" player with an explicit winning strategy for the corresponding value of bb.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1502.00445,
  title  = {Random-Player Maker-Breaker games},
  author = {Michael Krivelevich and Gal Kronenberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.00445},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Jonas Groschwitz and Tibor Szabo worked independently on several of the problems presented in this paper, and obtained similar results. Their work is presented in the following Arxiv postings: arXiv:1507.06688, arXiv:1602.04628. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1408.5684

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:18:53.386Z