Related papers: Dots & Boxes is PSPACE-complete
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 investigate the combinatorial game Slime Trail.This game is played on a graph with a starting piece in a node. Each player's objective is to reach one of their own goal nodes. Every turn the current player moves the piece and deletes the…
We settle two long-standing complexity-theoretical questions-open since 1981 and 1993-in combinatorial game theory (CGT). We prove that the Grundy value (a.k.a. nim-value, or nimber) of Undirected Geography is PSPACE-complete to compute.…
The class of exact transferable utility coalitional games, introduced in 1972 by Schmeidler, has been studied both in the context of game theory and in the context of imprecise probabilities. We characterize the cone of exact games by…
Concavity and its refinements underpin tractability in multiplayer games, where players independently choose actions to maximize their own payoffs which depend on other players' actions. In concave games, where players' strategy sets are…
We study the Poincare-Bendixson theorem for two-dimensional continuous dynamical systems in compact domains from the point of view of computation, seeking algorithms for finding the limit cycle promised by this classical result. We start by…
Schmidt's game is a powerful tool for studying properties of certain sets which arise in Diophantine approximation theory, number theory, and dynamics. Recently, many new results have been proven using this game. In this paper we address…
We verify a conjecture of Nowakowski and Ottaway that closed $1 \times n$ Dots-and-Triangles is a first-player win when $n \neq 2$. We also prove that in both the open and closed $1 \times n$ Dots-and-Boxes games where $n$ is even, the…
Weighted voting games are a popular class of coalitional games that are widely used to model real-life situations of decision-making. They can be applied, for instance, to analyze legislative processes in parliaments or voting in corporate…
Games on graphs provide a natural and powerful model for reactive systems. In this paper, we consider generalized reachability objectives, defined as conjunctions of reachability objectives. We first prove that deciding the winner in such…
The subject logic in computer science should entail proof theoretic applications. So the question arises whether open problems in computational complexity can be solved by advanced proof theoretic techniques. In particular, consider the…
We convert, within polynomial-time and sequential processing, NP-Complete Problems into a problem of deciding feasibility of a given system S of linear equations with constants and coefficients of binary-variables that are 0, 1, or -1. S is…
In the "Game about Squares" the task is to push unit squares on an integer lattice onto corresponding dots. A square can only be moved into one given direction. When a square is pushed onto a lattice point with an arrow the direction of the…
Let $(X, \mathcal{F})$ be a hypergraph. The Maker-Breaker game on $(X, \mathcal{F})$ is a combinatorial game between two players, Maker and Breaker. Beginning with Maker, the players take turns claiming vertices from $X$ that have not yet…
In this paper, we resolve the computational complexity of a number of outstanding open problems with practical applications. Here is the list of problems we show to be PPAD-complete, along with the domains of practical significance:…
Given a c-colored graph G, a vertex of G is happy if it has the same color as all its neighbors. The notion of happy vertices was introduced by Zhang and Li to compute the homophily of a graph. Eto, et al. introduced the Maker-Maker version…
We study three problems related to the computational complexity of the popular game Minesweeper. The first is consistency: given a set of clues, is there any arrangement of mines that satisfies it? This problem has been known to be…
We prove PSPACE-completeness of two classic types of Chess problems when generalized to n-by-n boards. A "retrograde" problem asks whether it is possible for a position to be reached from a natural starting position, i.e., whether the…
We show that, by using multiplicative weights in a game-theoretic thought experiment (and an important convexity result on the composition of multiplicative weights with the relative entropy function), a symmetric bimatrix game (that is, a…
We study the verification of distributed systems where processes are finite automata with access to a shared pool of locks. We consider objectives that are boolean combinations of local regular constraints. We show that the problem,…