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Related papers: On the Sprague-Grundy function of compound games

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We introduce the notion of invariant vectors of a game and develop the Invariance Reduction Process, which first uses reduction of positions via invariance and then zero and merge reductions of games to arrive at smaller, solved sub-games…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-06 Balaji R. Kadam , Matthieu Dufour , Silvia Heubach

A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. One of the major approaches to analyzing games in combinatorial game theory is to break down a given game position into a disjunctive sum of multiple…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-11-14 Kengo Hashimoto

Subtraction games are played with one or more heaps of tokens, with players taking turns removing from a single heap a number of tokens belonging to a specified subtraction set; the last player to move wins. We describe how to compute the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-04-19 David Eppstein

A move in the game of nim consists of taking any positive number of tokens from a single pile. Suppose we add the class of moves of taking a nonnegative number of tokens jointly from all the piles. We give a complete answer to the question…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Uri Blass , Aviezri S. Fraenkel , Romina Guelman

Sprouts is a two-player topological game, invented in 1967 in the University of Cambridge by John Conway and Michael Paterson. The game starts with p spots, and ends in at most 3p-1 moves. The first player who cannot play loses. The…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-08-16 Julien Lemoine , Simon Viennot

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

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

Zeon algebras have proven to be useful for enumerating structures in graphs, such as paths, trails, cycles, matchings, cliques, and independent sets. In contrast to an ordinary graph, in which each edge connects exactly two vertices, an…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-07 Samuel Ewing , G. Stacey Staples

We encode arbitrary finite impartial combinatorial games in terms of lattice points in rational convex polyhedra. Encodings provided by these \emph{lattice games} can be made particularly efficient for octal games, which we generalize to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2009-08-25 Alan Guo , Ezra Miller

Impartial subtraction games on the nonnegative integers have been studied by many and discussed in detail in for example the remarkable work Winning Ways by Conway, Berlekamp and Guy. We describe how comply variations of these games,…

Number Theory · Mathematics 2012-09-11 Urban Larsson

We investigate the complexity of finding a winning strategy for the mis\`ere version of three games played on graphs : two variants of the game $\text{NimG}$, introduced by Stockmann in 2004 and the game $\text{Vertex Geography}$ on both…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-05-05 Gabriel Renault , Simon Schmidt

Nim is a well-known combinatorial game in which two players alternately remove stones from distinct piles. A player who removes the last stone wins under the normal play rule, while a player loses under the mis\`ere play rule. In this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Hiromi Oginuma , Masato Shinoda

Poset games have been the object of mathematical study for over a century, but little has been written on the computational complexity of determining important properties of these games. In this introduction we develop the fundamentals of…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2015-06-26 Stephen A. Fenner , John Rogers

In this article, we study directed graphs (digraphs) with a coloring constraint due to Von Neumann and related to Nim-type games. This is equivalent to the notion of kernels of digraphs, which appears in numerous fields of research such as…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-02-06 Cyril Banderier , Jean-Marie Le Bars , Vlady Ravelomanana

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 2023-07-11 Paweł Prałat , Harjas Singh

A new combinatorial game is given. It generalizes both Substraction and Nim. It is proved the computation of Nash equilibrium points in this new game is NP-hard.

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-08-27 Chunlei Liu

The game of Nim, which has been well known for many years, has numerous variations. One such variation is Circular Nim, where piles of stones are arranged on a circumference, and players take stones from consecutive adjacent piles in one…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-11-13 Hiromi Oginuma , Masato Shinoda

The game of i-Mark is an impartial combinatorial game introduced by Sopena (2016). The game is parametrized by two sets of positive integers $S$, $D$, where $\min D\ge 2$. From position $n\ge 0$ one can move to any position $n-s$, $s\in S$,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-04-01 Gabriel Nivasch , Oz Rubinstein

We consider an {\em enforce operator} on impartial rulesets similar to the Muller Twist and the comply/constrain operator of Smith and St\u anic\u a, 2002. Applied to the rulesets A and B, on each turn the opponent enforces one of the…

A Subtraction-Division game is a two player combinatorial game with three parameters: a set S, a set D, and a number n. The game starts at n, and is a race to say the number 1. Each player, on their turn, can either move the total to n-s…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-06-05 Elizabeth Kupin