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A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. The main object of combinatorial game theory is to obtain the outcome, which player has a winning strategy, of a given combinatorial game. Positions of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-27 Kengo Hashimoto

We consider random-turn positional games, introduced by Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson in 2007. A $p$-random-turn positional game is a two-player game, played the same as an ordinary positional game, except that instead of alternating…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-08-26 Asaf Ferber , Michael Krivelevich , Gal Kronenberg

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 consider the recently introduced knotting-unknotting game, in which two players take turns resolving crossings in a knot diagram which initially is missing all its crossing information. Once the knot is fully resolved, the winner is…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2011-07-25 William Johnson

Here, we present a variant of the sliding coins game. Two coins are placed on distinct squares of a semi-infinite linear board with squares numbered $0, 1, 2, dots, $. Two players take turns and move a coin to a lower unoccupied square.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-04-29 Ryohei Miyadera , Hikaru Manabe , Unchon Lee

We propose a unifying additive theory for standard conventions in Combinatorial Game Theory, including normal-, mis\`ere- and scoring-play, studied by Berlekamp, Conway, Dorbec, Ettinger, Guy, Larsson, Milley, Neto, Nowakowski, Renault,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-07-07 Urban Larsson , Richard J. Nowakowski , Carlos P. Santos

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

Regular games form a well-established class of games for analysis and synthesis of reactive systems. They include coloured Muller games, McNaughton games, Muller games, Rabin games, and Streett games. These games are played on directed…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-05-14 Zihui Liang , Bakh Khoussainov , Mingyu Xiao

The second author introduced with I. T\"orm\"a a two-player word-building game [Playing with Subshifts, Fund. Inform. 132 (2014), 131--152]. The game has a predetermined (possibly finite) choice sequence $\alpha_1$, $\alpha_2$, $\ldots$ of…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2019-09-17 Jarkko Peltomäki , Ville Salo

Subtraction games are a class of impartial combinatorial games whose positions correspond to nonnegative integers and whose moves correspond to subtracting one of a fixed set of numbers from the current position. Though they are easy to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-07-11 Nathan Fox

In this paper, we propose a Quantum variation of combinatorial games, generalizing the Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe proposed by Allan Goff. A combinatorial game is a two-player game with no chance and no hidden information, such as Go or Chess. In…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2018-03-06 Paul Dorbec , Mehdi Mhalla

Domination game [SIAM J.\ Discrete Math.\ 24 (2010) 979--991] and total domination game [Graphs Combin.\ 31 (2015) 1453--1462] are by now well established games played on graphs by two players, named Dominator and Staller. In this paper,…

A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. The disjunctive sum $G + H$ of games $G$ and $H$ is the game in which $G$ and $H$ are played in parallel, and a player makes a move on exactly one of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-14 Kengo Hashimoto

This thesis will be discussing scoring play combinatorial games and looking at the general structure of these games under different operators. I will also be looking at the Sprague-Grundy values for scoring play impartial games, and…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-02-22 Fraser Stewart

By treating combinatorial games as dynamical systems, we are able to address a longstanding open question in combinatorial game theory, namely, how the introduction of a "pass" move into a game affects its behavior. We consider two well…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-04-17 Rebecca E. Morrison , Eric J. Friedman , Adam S. Landsberg

Combinatorial Game Theory typically studies sequential rulesets with perfect information where two players alternate moves. There are rulesets with {\em entailing moves} that break the alternating play axiom and/or restrict the other…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-04-04 Urban Larsson , Richard J. Nowakowski , Carlos P. Santos

Subtraction games are a classical topic in Combinatorial Game Theory. A result of Golomb~(1966) shows that every subtraction game with a finite move set has an eventually periodic nim-sequence, but the known proof yields only an exponential…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-18 Anjali Bhagat , Urban Larsson , Hikaru Manabe , Takahiro Yamashita

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 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

Given two finite sets of integers $S\subseteq\NNN\setminus\{0\}$ and $D\subseteq\NNN\setminus\{0,1\}$,the impartial combinatorial game $\IMARK(S,D)$ is played on a heap of tokens. From a heap of $n$ tokens, each player can moveeither to a…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-11-10 Eric Sopena