Related papers: The strange algebra of combinatorial games

We announce misere-play solutions to several previously-unsolved combinatorial games. The solutions are described in terms of misere quotients--commutative monoids that encode the additive structure of specific misere-play games. We also…

Combinatorial games are played under two different play conventions: normal play, where the last player to move wins, and \mis play, where the last player to move loses. Combinatorial games are also classified into impartial positions and…

We initiate the study of simple games from the point of view of combinatorial topology. The starting premise is that the losing coalitions of a simple game can be identified with a simplicial complex. Various topological constructions and…

Combinatorial games lead to several interesting, clean problems in algorithms and complexity theory, many of which remain open. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the area to encourage further research. In particular, we…

Combinatorial Game Theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that studies sequential 2-player games with perfect information. Normal play is the convention where a player who cannot move loses. Here, we generalize…

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 consider the class of "well-tempered" integer-valued scoring games, which have the property that the parity of the length of the game is independent of the line of play. We consider disjunctive sums of these games, and develop a theory…

We begin by reviewing and proving the basic facts of combinatorial game theory. We then consider scoring games (also known as Milnor games or positional games), focusing on the "fixed-length" games for which all sequences of play terminate…

In this paper we will discuss scoring play games. We will give the basic definitions for scoring play games, and show that they form a well defined set, with clear and distinct outcome classes under these definitions. We will also show that…

Inspired by the theory of poset games, we introduce a new compound of impartial combinatorial games and provide a complete analysis in the spirit of the Sprague-Grundy theory. Furthermore, we establish several substitution and reduction…

We extend the open games framework for compositional game theory to encompass also mixed strategies, making essential use of the discrete probability distribution monad. We show that the resulting games form a symmetric monoidal category,…

Poset games have been the object of mathematical study for over a century, but little has been written on the computational complexity of determining important properties of these games. In this introduction we develop the fundamentals of…

We introduce a misere quotient semigroup construction in impartial combinatorial game theory, and argue that it is the long-sought natural generalization of the normal-play Sprague-Grundy theory to misere play. Along the way, we illustrate…

This thesis is basically devoted to matroids -- fundamental structure of combinatorial optimization -- though some of our results concern simplicial complexes, or Euclidean spaces. We study old and new problems for these structures, with…

Absolute Universes of combinatorial games, as defined in a recent paper by the same authors, include many standard short normal- mis\`ere- and scoring-play monoids. In this note we show that the class is categorical, by extending Joyal's…

We illustrate how one can use basic combinatorial theory and computer programming technique (Python) to analyze the combinatorial game: Mahjong. The results confirm some folklore concerning the game, and expose some unexpected results.…

Compositional Game Theory is a new, recently introduced model of economic games based upon the computer science idea of compositionality. In it, complex and irregular games can be built up from smaller and simpler games, and the equilibria…

We will describe a combinatorial game that models the problem of resolution of singularities of algebraic varieties over a field of characteristic zero. By giving a winning strategy for this game, we give another proof of the existence of…

This thesis will be discussing scoring play combinatorial games and looking at the general structure of these games under different operators. I will also be looking at the Sprague-Grundy values for scoring play impartial games, and…

We survey recent developments in the theory of impartial combinatorial games in misere play, focusing on how the Sprague-Grundy theory of normal-play impartial games generalizes to misere play via the indistinguishability quotient…