English
Related papers

Related papers: Manipulative waiters with probabilistic intuition

200 papers

We study the unbiased WalkerMaker-WalkerBreaker games on the edge set of the complete graph on $n$ vertices, $K_n$, a variant of well-known Maker-Breaker positional games, where both players have the restriction on the way of playing.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-06-13 Jovana Forcan , Mirjana Mikalački

We study the (1:b) Maker-Breaker component game, played on the edge set of a d-regular graph. Maker's aim in this game is to build a large connected component, while Breaker's aim is to not let him do so. For all values of Breaker's bias b,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2013-01-03 Rani Hod , Alon Naor

We consider a two-player game in which the first player (the Guesser) tries to guess, edge-by-edge, the path that second player (the Chooser) takes through a directed graph. At each step, the Guesser makes a wager as to the correctness of…

Probability · Mathematics 2009-07-14 Marcus Pendergrass

Positional games were introduced by Hales and Jewett in 1963, and their study became more popular after Erdos and Selfridge's first result on their connection to Ramsey theory and hypergraph coloring in 1973. Several conventions of these…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-09-04 Valentin Gledel , Nacim Oijid , Sébastien Tavenas , Stéphan Thomassé

Let $r \ge 4$ be an integer and consider the following game on the complete graph $K_n$ for $n \in r \mathbb{Z}$: Two players, Maker and Breaker, alternately claim previously unclaimed edges of $K_n$ such that in each turn Maker claims one…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-02-10 Anita Liebenau , Rajko Nenadov

The semi-random graph process is a single player game in which the player is initially presented an empty graph on $n$ vertices. In each round, a vertex $u$ is presented to the player independently and uniformly at random. The player then…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-02-21 Pu Gao , Calum MacRury , Pawel Pralat

We study the biased $(1:b)$ Maker--Breaker positional games, played on the edge set of the complete graph on $n$ vertices, $K_n$. Given Breaker's bias $b$, possibly depending on $n$, we determine the bounds for the minimal number of moves,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-06-22 Mirjana Mikalački , Miloš Stojaković

We study Maker--Breaker total domination game played by two players, Dominator and Staller, on the connected cubic graphs. Staller (playing the role of Maker) wins if she manages to claim an open neighbourhood of a vertex. Dominator wins…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-06-22 Jovana Forcan , Mirjana Mikalački

We introduce a new type of positional games, played on a vertex set of a graph. Given a graph $G$, two players claim vertices of $G$, where the outcome of the game is determined by the subgraphs of $G$ induced by the vertices claimed by…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-01-03 Gal Kronenberg , Adva Mond , Alon Naor

Since its introduction as a Maker-Breaker positional game by Duch\^ene et al. in 2020, the Maker-Breaker domination game has become one of the most studied positional games on vertices. In this game, two players, Dominator and Staller,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-14 Guillaume Bagan , Mathieu Hilaire , Nacim Oijid , Aline Parreau

We initiate the study of the phantom version of Maker-Breaker positional games. In a phantom game, the moves of one of the players are hidden from the other player, who still has the complete information. We look at the biased $(a:b)$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-07-31 Dennis Clemens , Fabian Hamann , Mirjana Mikalački , Yannick Mogge , Miloš Stojaković

This work is concerned with the study of the Game of Graph Nim -- a class of two-player combinatorial games -- on graphs with $4$ edges. To each edge of such a graph is assigned a positive-integer-valued edge-weight, and during each round…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-08 Sayar Karmakar , Moumanti Podder , Souvik Roy , Soumyarup Sadhukhan

Consider the following probabilistic one-player game: The board is a graph with $n$ vertices, which initially contains no edges. In each step, a new edge is drawn uniformly at random from all non-edges and is presented to the player,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-11-20 Michael Belfrage , Torsten Mütze , Reto Spöhel

We present a general approach connecting biased Maker-Breaker games and problems about local resilience in random graphs. We utilize this approach to prove new results and also to derive some known results about biased Maker-Breaker games.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-11 Asaf Ferber , Michael Krivelevich , Humberto Naves

We study (a:a) Maker-Breaker games played on the edge set of the complete graph on n vertices. In the following four games - perfect matching game, Hamilton cycle game, star factor game and path factor game, our goal is to determine the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-02-09 Dennis Clemens , Mirjana Mikalački

Two-player zero-sum "graph games" are a central model, which proceeds as follows. A token is placed on a vertex of a graph, and the two players move it to produce an infinite "play", which determines the winner or payoff of the game.…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-11-28 Guy Avni , Ismael Jecker , Djordje Zikelic

We introduce a new two-player game on graphs, in which players alternate choosing vertices until the set of chosen vertices forms a dominating set. The last player to choose a vertex is the winner. The game fits into the scheme of several…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-31 Sean Fiscus , Glenn Hurlbert , Eric Myzelev , Travis Pence

The semi-random graph process is a single player game in which the player is initially presented an empty graph on $n$ vertices. In each round, a vertex $u$ is presented to the player independently and uniformly at random. The player then…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-05-14 David Gamarnik , Mihyun Kang , Pawel Pralat

In classical Maker-Breaker games on graphs, Maker and Breaker take turns claiming edges; Maker's goal is to claim all of some structure (e.g., a spanning tree, Hamilton cycle, etc.), while Breaker aims to stop her. The standard question…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-05-28 Wesley Pegden , Francesca Yu

We consider two-player combinatorial games in which the graph of positions is random and perhaps infinite, focusing on directed Galton-Watson trees. As the offspring distribution is varied, a game can undergo a phase transition, in which…

Probability · Mathematics 2019-04-09 Alexander E. Holroyd , James B. Martin