The game Max-Welter
Abstract
On a semi-infinite strip of squares rightward numbered with at most one coin in each square, in Welter's game, two players alternately move a coin to an empty square on its left. Jumping over other coins is legal. The player who first cannot move loses. We examine a variant of Welter's game, that we call Max-Welter, in which players are allowed to move only the coin furthest to the right. We solve the winning strategy and describe the positions of Sprague-Grundy value 1. We propose two theorems classifying some special cases where calculating the Sprague-Grundy value of a position of size becomes easier by considering another position of size . We establish two results on the periodicity of the Sprague-Grundy values. We then show that the game Max-Welter is classified in a proper subclass of tame games that Gurvich calls strongly miserable.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1202.4075,
title = {The game Max-Welter},
author = {Nhan Bao Ho},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.4075},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
14 pages, new conjectures, several modifications, accepted for publication in Discrete Mathematics