Related papers: Too Many Hats
The $k$-majority game is played with $n$ numbered balls, each coloured with one of two colours. It is given that there are at least $k$ balls of the majority colour, where $k$ is a fixed integer greater than $n/2$. On each turn the player…
A famous (and hard) chess problem asks what is the maximum number of safe squares possible in placing $n$ queens on an $n\times n$ board. We examine related problems from placing $n$ rooks. We prove that as $n\to\infty$, the probability…
We examine a new variant of the classic prisoners and lightswitches puzzle: A warden leads his $n$ prisoners in and out of $r$ rooms, one at a time, in some order, with each prisoner eventually visiting every room an arbitrarily large…
We consider a problem of guessing, wherein an adversary is interested in knowing the value of the realization of a discrete random variable $X$ on observing another correlated random variable $Y$. The adversary can make multiple (say, $k$)…
Consider a uniformly random deck consisting of cards labelled by numbers from $1$ through $n$, possibly with repeats. A guesser guesses the top card, after which it is revealed and removed and the game continues. What is the expected number…
We consider a game in which a cop searches for a moving robber on a connected graph using distance probes, which is a slight variation on one introduced by Seager. Carragher, Choi, Delcourt, Erickson and West showed that for any $n$-vertex…
We introduce multi-head finite-state dimension, a generalization of finite-state dimension in which a group of finite-state agents (the heads) with oblivious, one-way movement rules, each reporting only one symbol at a time, enable their…
We consider a card guessing strategy for a stack of cards with two different types of cards, say $m_1$ cards of type red (heart or diamond) and $m_2$ cards of type black (clubs or spades). Given a deck of $M=m_1+m_2$ cards, we propose a…
In a $(1:b)$ biased Maker-Breaker game, how good a strategy is for a player can be measured by the bias range for which its rival can win, choosing an appropriate counterstrategy. Bednarska and {\L}uczak proved that, in the $H$-subgraph…
The iterated prisoner's dilemma is a game that produces many counter-intuitive and complex behaviors in a social environment, based on very simple basic rules. It illustrates that cooperation can be a good thing even in a competitive world,…
The combinatorial stochastic semi-bandit problem is an extension of the classical multi-armed bandit problem in which an algorithm pulls more than one arm at each stage and the rewards of all pulled arms are revealed. One difference with…
We harness both human ingenuity and the power of symbolic computation to study the number of coin tosses until reaching $n$ Heads or $m$ Tails. We also talk about the closely related problem of reaching $n$ Heads and $m$ Tails. This paper…
We investigate the problem dependent regime in the stochastic Thresholding Bandit problem (TBP) under several shape constraints. In the TBP, the objective of the learner is to output, at the end of a sequential game, the set of arms whose…
Counting independent sets in graphs and hypergraphs under a variety of restrictions is a classical question with a long history. It is the subject of the celebrated container method which found numerous spectacular applications over the…
We show a general problem-solving tool called limit theory. This is an advanced version of asymptotic analysis of discrete problems when some finite parameter tends to infinity. We will apply it on three closely related problems. Alpern's…
We investigate some versions of the famous 100 prisoner problem for the infinite case, where there are infinitely many prisoners and infinitely many boxes with labels. In this case, many questions can be asked about the admissible steps of…
Recognise that people have many, possibly conflicting, aspects to their personality. We hypothesise that each separate characteristic of a personality may be treated as an independent player in a non-zero sum many player game. This idea is…
We consider games played on finite graphs, whose goal is to obtain a trace belonging to a given set of winning traces. We focus on those states from which Player 1 cannot force a win. We explore and compare several criteria for establishing…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. An ordered deck of $n$ cards labeled $1$ up to $n$ is shelf-shuffled exactly one time. One after the other a single card is drawn from the shuffled deck. The guesser makes has guess…
Encoding and decoding are the two key steps in information processing. In this work we study the encoding and decoding capabilities of operational theories in the context of information-storability game, where the task is to freely choose a…