Related papers: Move-minimizing puzzles and diamond-colored modula…
We present some elementary but foundational results concerning diamond-colored modular and distributive lattices and connect these structures to certain one-player combinatorial "move-minimizing games," in particular, a so-called "domino…
A modular or distributive lattice is `diamond-colored' if its order diagram edges are colored in such a way that, within any diamond of edges, parallel edges have the same color. Such lattices arise naturally in combinatorial representation…
We introduce a new family of one-player games, involving the movement of coins from one configuration to another. Moves are restricted so that a coin can be placed only in a position that is adjacent to at least two other coins. The goal of…
We announce misere-play solutions to several previously-unsolved combinatorial games. The solutions are described in terms of misere quotients--commutative monoids that encode the additive structure of specific misere-play games. We also…
This thesis is basically devoted to matroids -- fundamental structure of combinatorial optimization -- though some of our results concern simplicial complexes, or Euclidean spaces. We study old and new problems for these structures, with…
Coloring games are combinatorial games where the players alternate painting uncolored vertices of a graph one of $k > 0$ colors. Each different ruleset specifies that game's coloring constraints. This paper investigates six impartial…
Combinatorial Game Theory has also been called `additive game theory', whenever the analysis involves sums of independent game components. Such {\em disjunctive sums} invoke comparison between games, which allows abstract values to be…
This paper provides effective methods for the polyhedral formulation of impartial finite combinatorial games as lattice games. Given a rational strategy for a lattice game, a polynomial time algorithm is presented to decide (i) whether a…
Japanese tatami mats are often arranged so that no four mats meet. This local restriction imposes a rich combinatorial structure when applied to monomino-domino coverings of rectilinear grids. We describe a modular, mechanical game board,…
We initiate the study of simple games from the point of view of combinatorial topology. The starting premise is that the losing coalitions of a simple game can be identified with a simplicial complex. Various topological constructions and…
In cooperative game theory, games in partition function form are real-valued function on the set of so-called embedded coalitions, that is, pairs $(S,\pi)$ where $S$ is a subset (coalition) of the set $N$ of players, and $\pi$ is a…
We introduce a perfect discrete Morse function on the moduli space of a polygonal linkage. The ingredients of the construction are: (1) the cell structure on the moduli space, and (2) the discrete Morse theory approach, which allows to…
We study a popular puzzle game known variously as Clickomania and Same Game. Basically, a rectangular grid of blocks is initially colored with some number of colors, and the player repeatedly removes a chosen connected monochromatic group…
Combinatorial games are two-player games of pure strategy where the players, usually called Left and Right, move alternately. In this paper, we introduce Cheating Robot games. These arise from simultaneous-play combinatorial games where one…
We investigate conditions under which positions in combinatorial games admit simple values. We introduce a unified diamond framework, the $\Diamond_A$-property ($A\in\{\mathbb{Z},\mathbb{D}$), for sets of positions closed under options.…
We develop a framework for the distributed minimization of submodular functions. Submodular functions are a discrete analog of convex functions and are extensively used in large-scale combinatorial optimization problems. While there has…
A query game is a pair of a set $Q$ of queries and a set $\mathcal{F}$ of functions, or codewords $f:Q\rightarrow \mathbb{Z}.$ We think of this as a two-player game. One player, Codemaker, picks a hidden codeword $f\in \mathcal{F}$. The…
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),…
Various forms of sorting problems have been studied over the years. Recently, two kinds of sorting puzzle apps are popularized. In these puzzles, we are given a set of bins filled with colored units, balls or water, and some empty bins.…
We study variations on combinatorial games in which, instead of alternating moves, the players bid with discrete bidding chips for the right to determine who moves next. We consider both symmetric and partisan games, and explore differences…