Related papers: Compound Node-Kayles on Paths
We study the computational complexity of the popular board game backgammon. We show that deciding whether a player can win from a given board configuration is NP-Hard, PSPACE-Hard, and EXPTIME-Hard under different settings of known and…
Dull, weak and nested solitaire games are important classes of parity games, capturing, among others, alternation-free mu-calculus and ECTL* model checking problems. These classes can be solved in polynomial time using dedicated algorithms.…
We introduce CUT, the class of 2-player partition games. These are NIM type games, played on a finite number of heaps of beans. The rules are given by a set of positive integers, which specifies the number of allowed splits a player can…
The ``losing positions" of certain combinatorial games constitute linear error detecting and correcting codes. We show that a large class of games that can be cast in the form of *annihilation games*, provides a potentially polynomial…
In this thesis, we survey techniques and results from the study of Complexity Theory and Games. We then apply these techniques to obtain new results for previously unstudied games. Our contributions in the games Hexiom, Cut the Rope, and…
We study the transfinite version of Welter's Game, a combinatorial game played on a belt divided into squares numbered with general ordinal. In particular, we give a straight-forward solution for the transfinite version, based on those of…
In this paper, we address a natural question at the intersection of combinatorial game theory and computational complexity: "Can a sum of simple tepid games in canonical form be intractable?" To resolve this fundamental question, we…
Independent set games are cooperative games defined on graphs, where players are edges and the value of a coalition is the maximum cardinality of independent sets in the subgraph defined by the coalition. In this paper, we investigate the…
This paper models games where the strategies are nodes of a graph G (we denote them as G-games) and in presence of coalition structures. The cases of one-shot and repeated games are presented. In the latter situation, coalitions are assumed…
The game of Othello is one of the world's most complex and popular games that has yet to be computationally solved. Othello has roughly ten octodecillion (10 to the 58th power) possible game records and ten octillion (10 to the 28th power)…
Infinite games where several players seek to coordinate under imperfect information are deemed to be undecidable, unless the information is hierarchically ordered among the players. We identify a class of games for which joint winning…
In 1901, Bouton proved that a winning strategy of the game of Nim is given by the bitwise XOR, called the nim-sum. But, why does such a weird binary operation work? Led by this question, this paper introduces a categorical reinterpretation…
On a convex polygonal chessboard, the number of combinatorial types of nonattacking configuration of three identical chess riders with $r$ moves, such as queens, bishops, or nightriders, equals $r(r^2+3r-1)/3$, as conjectured by Chaiken,…
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…
In Combinatorial Game Theory, short game forms are defined recursively over all the positions the two players are allowed to move to. A form is decomposable if it can be expressed as a disjunctive sum of two forms with smaller birthday. If…
We show that, in John Conway's board game Phutball (or Philosopher's Football), it is NP-complete to determine whether the current player has a move that immediately wins the game. In contrast, the similar problems of determining whether…
The paper studies the convergence, as $N$ tends to infinity, of a system of $N$ coupled Hamilton-Jacobi equations, the Nash system. This system arises in differential game theory. We describe the limit problem in terms of the so-called…
There are many combinatorial games in which a move can terminate the game, such as a checkmate in chess. These moves give rise to diverse situations that fall outside the scope of the classical normal play structure. To analyze these games,…
We study the existence and computation of Nash equilibria in concave games where the players' admissible strategies are subject to shared coupling constraints. Under playerwise concavity of constraints, we prove existence of Nash…
Negotiations, a model of concurrency with multi party negotiation as primitive, have been recently introduced by J. Desel and J. Esparza. We initiate the study of games for this model. We study coalition problems: can a given coalition of…