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This is an introduction into John Conway's beautiful Combinatorial Game Theory, providing precise statements and detailed proofs for the fundamental parts of his theory. (1) Combinatorial game theory, (2) the GROUP of games, (3) the FIELD…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-08-21 Dierk Schleicher , Michael Stoll

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-10-31 Prem Kant , Urban Larsson , Ravi K. Rai , Akshay V. Upasany

Past efforts to classify impartial three-player combinatorial games (the theories of Li and Straffin) have made various restrictive assumptions about the rationality of one's opponents and the formation and behavior of coalitions. One may…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 James Propp

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…

Physics and Society · Physics 2025-03-18 Ismar Volic , Leah Valentiner

Game theory is used by all behavioral sciences, but its development has long centered around tools for relatively simple games and toy systems, such as the economic interpretation of equilibrium outcomes. Our contribution, compositional…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-03-13 Seth Frey , Jules Hedges , Joshua Tan , Philipp Zahn

We present an algebraic framework for the analysis of combinatorial games. This framework embraces the classical theory of partizan games as well as a number of misere games, comply-constrain games, and card games that have been studied…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-12-03 Johan Wästlund

We study combinatorial games under mis\`ere convention. Several sets of games have been considered earlier to better understand the behaviour of mis\`ere games. We here connect several of these sets. In particular, we prove that comparison…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-05-14 Gabriel Renault

A finite impartial game is a two-player game in which the players take turns making moves and the game ends after finitely many moves. In this paper, we study a class of finite impartial games introduced by H.~Lenstra, which we call coin…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-17 Masao Ishikawa , Toyokazu Ohmoto , Hiroyuki Tagawa , Yoshiki Takayama

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Thane E. Plambeck

Subtraction games is a class of combinatorial games. It was solved since the Sprague-Grundy Theory was put forward. This paper described a new algorithm for subtraction games. The new algorithm can find win or lost positions in subtraction…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2012-08-31 Guanglei He , Zhihui Qin

We encode arbitrary finite impartial combinatorial games in terms of lattice points in rational convex polyhedra. Encodings provided by these \emph{lattice games} can be made particularly efficient for octal games, which we generalize to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-08-25 Alan Guo , Ezra Miller

We develop a generic computational model that can be used effectively for establishing the existence of winning strategies for concrete finite combinatorial games. Our modelling is (equational) logic-based involving advanced techniques from…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-12-12 Răzvan Diaconescu

A group of students in 7-9 grades are inventing combinatorial impartial games. The games are played on graphs, piles, and grids. We found winning positions, optimal strategies, and other interesting facts about the 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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-12-16 Will Johnson

We propose a way of extracting and aggregating per-move evaluations from sets of Go game records. The evaluations capture different aspects of the games such as played patterns or statistic of sente/gote sequences. Using machine learning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2015-12-31 Josef Moudřík , Petr Baudiš , Roman Neruda

Genetic programming is the practice of evolving formulas using crossover and mutation of genes representing functional operations. Motivated by genetic evolution we develop and solve two combinatorial games, and we demonstrate some…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-02-02 Melissa A. Huggan , Craig Tennenhouse

We provide a compositional coalgebraic semantics for strategic games. In our framework, like in the semantics of functional programming languages, coalgebras represent the observable behaviour of systems derived from the behaviour of the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-12-25 Achim Blumensath , Viktor Winschel

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2008-06-30 Thane E. Plambeck , Aaron N. Siegel

We investigate the Sprague-Grundy sequences for two normal-play impartial games based on arithmetic functions, first described by Iannucci and Larsson in \cite{sum}. In each game, the set of positions is N (natural numbers). In saliquant,…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2023-09-06 Paul Ellis , Jason Shi , Thotsaporn Aek Thanatipanonda , Andrew Tu

Berlekamp proposed a class of impartial combinatorial games based on the moves of chess pieces on rectangular boards. We generalize impartial chess games by playing them on Young diagrams and obtain results about winning and losing…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-01-27 Eric Gottlieb , Matjaž Krnc , Peter Muršič