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Markov chains are an important example for a course on stochastic processes because simple board games can be used to illustrate the fundamental concepts. For example, a looping board game (like Monopoly) consists of all recurrent states,…
The Gale-Berlekamp Light Switching Game is played on a square board of lights. Each light has two states, either on or off. There is a switch to every row and column. Turning this switch would change the state of all the lights on that row…
Several variations of hat guessing games have been popularly discussed in recreational mathematics. In a typical hat guessing game, after initially coordinating a strategy, each of $n$ players is assigned a hat from a given color set.…
For a finite set $X$, a family of sets ${\mathcal F} \subseteq 2^X$ and a positive integer $q$, we consider two types of two player, perfect information games with no chance moves. In each round of the $(1 : q)$ Waiter-Client game $(X,…
The deduction game may be thought of as a variant on the classical game of cops and robber in which the cops (searchers) aim to capture an invisible robber (evader); each cop is allowed to move at most once, and cops situated on different…
Many analysis and verifications tasks, such as static program analyses and model-checking for temporal logics reduce to the solution of systems of equations over suitable lattices. Inspired by recent work on lattice-theoretic progress…
In a monotonic sequence game, two players alternately choose elements of a sequence from some fixed ordered set. The game ends when the resulting sequence contains either an ascending subsequence of length a or a descending one of length d.…
We recast move generators for solving board games as operations on compressed sets of strings. We aim for compressed representations with space sublinear in the number of game positions for interesting sets of positions, move generation in…
Aim: Present a systematic development of part of the theory of combinatorial games from the ground up. Approach: Computational complexity. Combinatorial games are completely determined; the questions of interest are efficiencies of…
This paper introduces alignment games, a new class of zero-sum games modeling strategic interventions where effectiveness depends on alignment with an underlying hidden state. Motivated by operational problems in medical diagnostics,…
Competition among cooperators, defectors, and loners is studied in an evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game with optional participation. Loners are risk averse i.e. unwilling to participate and rather rely on small but fixed earnings. This…
In this paper, we delve into the problem of using monetary incentives to encourage players to shift from an initial Nash equilibrium to a more favorable one within a game. Our main focus revolves around computing the minimum reward required…
The \emph{slow-coloring game} is played by Lister and Painter on a graph $G$. Initially, all vertices of $G$ are uncolored. In each round, Lister marks a nonempty set $M$ of uncolored vertices, and Painter colors a subset of $M$ that is…
We propose a numerical method for stationary Mean Field Games defined on a network. In this framework a correct approximation of the transition conditions at the vertices plays a crucial role. We prove existence, uniqueness and convergence…
We analyze the computational complexity of the problem of deciding whether, for a given simple game, there exists the possibility of rearranging the participants in a set of $j$ given losing coalitions into a set of $j$ winning coalitions.…
We consider the following game. A deck with $m$ copies of each of $n$ distinct cards is shuffled in a perfectly random way. The Guesser sequentially guesses the card from top to bottom. After each guess, the Guesser is informed whether the…
In this paper, we study a theoretical math problem of game theory and calculus of variations in which we minimize a functional involving two players. A general relationship between the optimal strategies for both players is presented,…
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…
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 study the problem of finding Stackelberg equilibria in games with a massive number of players. So far, the only known game instances in which the problem is solved in polynomial time are some particular congestion games. However, a…