English
Related papers

Related papers: On the Query Complexity of Black-Peg AB-Mastermind

200 papers

This paper presents an optimal strategy for solving the 4 peg-7 color Mastermind MM(4,7) in the expected case (4.676) along with optimal strategies or upper bounds for other values. The program developed is using a depth-first branch and…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2013-05-07 Geoffroy Ville

In games with imperfect recall, players may forget the sequence of decisions they made in the past. When players also forget whether they have already encountered their current decision point, they are said to be absent-minded. Solving…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-02-20 Hugo Gimbert , Soumyajit Paul , B. Srivathsan

In this paper we show that the Mastermind Satisfiability Problem (MSP) is NP-complete. The Mastermind is a popular game which can be turned into a logical puzzle called Mastermind Satisfiability Problem in a similar spirit to the…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2007-05-23 Jeff Stuckman , Guo-Qiang Zhang

In this paper we prove lower bounds on randomized multiparty communication complexity, both in the \emph{blackboard model} (where each message is written on a blackboard for all players to see) and (mainly) in the \emph{message-passing…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2015-02-10 Jeff M. Phillips , Elad Verbin , Qin Zhang

Common knowledge is crucial for safe group coordination. In its absence, humans must rely on shared knowledge, which is inherently limited in depth and therefore prone to coordination failures, because any finite-order knowledge attribution…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Thomas Bolander , Robin Engelhardt , Thomas S. Nicolet

We study a game puzzle that has enjoyed recent popularity among mathematicians, computer scientist, coding theorists and even the mass press. In the game, $n$ players are fitted with randomly assigned colored hats. Individual players can…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2007-07-16 Hendrik W. Lenstra , Gadiel Seroussi

Consider a variant of the Mastermind game in which queries are $\ell_p$ distances, rather than the usual Hamming distance. That is, a codemaker chooses a hidden vector $\mathbf{y}\in\{-k,-k+1,\dots,k-1,k\}^n$ and answers to queries of the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2019-09-25 Manuel Fernandez , David P. Woodruff , Taisuke Yasuda

The game of Hangman is a classical asymmetric two player game in which one player, the setter, chooses a secret word from a language, that the other player, the guesser, tries to discover through single letter matching queries, answered by…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2020-05-05 Jérémy Barbay , Bernardo Subercaseaux

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.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-01-20 Tengyu Ma , Xiaoming Sun , Huacheng Yu

Consider a situation with $n$ agents or players where some of the players form a coalition with a certain collective objective. Simple games are used to model systems that can decide whether coalitions are successful (winning) or not…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-09-19 Martin Olsen

Mirror games were invented by Garg and Schnieder (ITCS 2019). Alice and Bob take turns (with Alice playing first) in declaring numbers from the set {1,2, ...2n}. If a player picks a number that was previously played, that player loses and…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2023-07-14 Roey Magen , Moni Naor

Infinite chess is chess played on an infinite edgeless chessboard. The familiar chess pieces move about according to their usual chess rules, and each player strives to place the opposing king into checkmate. The mate-in-n problem of…

Logic · Mathematics 2012-05-17 Dan Brumleve , Joel David Hamkins , Philipp Schlicht

The problem we are considering is the following. A colorblind player is given a set $B = \{b_1,b_2,...,b_N\}$ of $N$ colored balls. He knows that each ball is colored either red or green, and that there are less green balls (this will be…

In the permutation Mastermind game, the goal is to uncover a secret permutation $\sigma^\star \colon [n] \to [n]$ by making a series of guesses $\pi_1, \ldots, \pi_T$ which must also be permutations of $[n]$, and receiving as feedback after…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2026-05-05 Bernardo Subercaseaux

This paper proposes \emph{knowledge-based paraonoia search} (KBPS) to find forced wins during trick-taking in the card game Skat; for some one of the most interesting card games for three players. It combines efficient partial information…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-04-13 Stefan Edelkamp

We calculated a fixed strategy that minimizes the average number of guesses (minimum strategy) for the number-guessing game MOO by exhaustive search. Although the minimum strategy for a similar game, mastermind, has been reported, this…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-07-12 Tetsuro Tanaka

We formulate the $(n,k)$ Coset Monogamy Game, in which two players must extract complementary information of unequal size ($k$ bits vs. $n-k$ bits) from a random coset state without communicating. The complementary information takes the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-10-01 Michael Schleppy , Emina Soljanin

A card guessing game is played between two players, Guesser and Dealer. At the beginning of the game, the Dealer holds a deck of $n$ cards (labeled $1, ..., n$). For $n$ turns, the Dealer draws a card from the deck, the Guesser guesses…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2022-01-04 Boaz Menuhin , Moni Naor

This paper presents a novel class of information-theoretic strategies for solving the game of Mastermind, achieving state-of-the-art performance among known heuristic methods. The core contribution is the application of a weighted entropy…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-26 Serkan Gür

We analyze the computational complexity of several new variants of edge-matching puzzles. First we analyze inequality (instead of equality) constraints between adjacent tiles, proving the problem NP-complete for strict inequalities but…