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Related papers: On Aperiodic Subtraction Games with Bounded Nim Se…

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We generalize the results and conjectures of Tam\'{a}s Lengyel, showing that the \textsc{nim}-values of a large class of two-dimensional subtraction-transfer games are periodic. These are impartial, normal-play games with two piles of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-25 Alon Danai , Paul Ellis , Thotsaporn Aek Thanatipanonda

The disjunctive sum of impartial games is analyzed by Sprague-Grundy theory. The theory has been extended to loopy games and entailing games by early results. In this study, we consider further extension of this theory and show partial…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-04-02 Koki Suetsugu

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

In this paper, we formalize Sprague-Grundy theory for combinatorial games in bounded arithmetic. We show that in the presence of Sprague-Grundy numbers, a fairly weak axioms capture PSPACE.

Logic · Mathematics 2016-09-09 Satoru Kuroda

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-05-19 Mišo Gavrilović , Alexander Thumm

We study the periodicity of nim-sequences for subtraction games having subtraction sets with three elements. In particular, we give solutions in several cases, and we describe how these subtraction sets can be augmented by additional…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-12-25 Nhan Bao Ho

We define the family of {\it locally path-bounded} digraphs, which is a class of infinite digraphs, and show that on this class it is relatively easy to compute an optimal strategy (winning or nonlosing); and realize a win, when possible,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Aviezri S. Fraenkel , Ofer Rahat

Arithmetic functions in Number Theory meet the Sprague-Grundy function from Combinatorial Game Theory. We study a variety of 2-player games induced by standard arithmetic functions, such as Euclidian division, divisors, remainders and…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2021-07-06 Douglas E. Iannucci , Urban Larsson

We examine the structure of the additive period of the Sprague-Grundy function of Nim-like games, among them Wythoff's Game, and deduce a bound for the length of the period and preperiod.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-08-27 Jens Askgaard

We study the applicability of quantum algorithms in computational game theory and generalize some results related to Subtraction games, which are sometimes referred to as one-heap Nim games. In quantum game theory, a subset of Subtraction…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-06-15 Dmitry Kravchenko , Kamil Khadiev , Danil Serov , Ruslan Kapralov

We analyze the Sprague-Grundy functions for a class of almost disjoint selective compound games played on Nim heaps. Surprisingly, we find that these functions behave chaotically for smaller Sprague-Grundy values of each component game yet…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-02-27 Calvin Beideman , Matthew Bowen , Necati Alp Muyesser

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-17 Ryuya Hora

By resorting to the vector space structure of finite games, skew-symmetric games (SSGs) are proposed and investigated as a natural subspace of finite games. First of all, for two player games, it is shown that the skew-symmetric games form…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2017-12-11 Yaqi Hao , Daizhan Cheng

This paper concerns two-player alternating play combinatorial games (Conway 1976) in the normal-play convention, i.e. last move wins. Specifically, we study impartial vector subtraction games on tuples of nonnegative integers (Golomb 1966),…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-01-17 Urban Larsson , Indrajit Saha , Makoto Yokoo

We determine the full nim-value structure of additive subtraction games in the {\em primitive quadratic} regime. The problem appears in Winning Ways by Berlekamp et al. in 1982; it includes a closed formula, involving Beatty-type {\em…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-31 Urban Larsson , Hikaru Manabe

A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. One of the major approaches to analyzing games in combinatorial game theory is to break down a given game position into a disjunctive sum of multiple…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-11-14 Kengo Hashimoto

Using coalgebraic methods, we extend Conway's theory of games to possibly non-terminating, i.e. non-wellfounded games (hypergames). We take the view that a play which goes on forever is a draw, and hence rather than focussing on winning…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-07-01 Furio Honsell , Marina Lenisa

Given a hypergraph $\cH \subseteq 2^I \setminus \{\emptyset\}$ on the ground set $I = \{1, \ldots, n\}$, we assign to each $i \in I$ a nonnegative integer $x_i$, that is a pile of $x_i$ tokens, and consider the following generalization of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-04-02 Endre Boros , Vladimir Gurvich , Nhan Bao Ho , Kazuhisa Makino

We study zero-sum games, a variant of the classical combinatorial Subtraction games (studied for example in the monumental work "Winning Ways", by Berlekamp, Conway and Guy), called Cumulative Subtraction (CS). Two players alternate in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-02-14 Gal Cohensius , Urban Larsson , Reshef Meir , David Wahlstedt

We apply the Sprague-Grundy Theorem to LCTR, a new impartial game on partitions in which players take turns removing either the Left Column or the Top Row of the corresponding Young diagram. We establish that the Sprague-Grundy value of any…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-08-16 Eric Gottlieb , Jelena Ilić , Matjaž Krnc