Related papers: When Rooks Miss: Probability through Chess
Consider N equally-spaced points on a circle of circumference N. Choose at random n points out of $N$ on this circle and append clockwise an arc of integral length k to each such point. The resulting random set is made of a random number of…
We consider the problem of finding good low rank approximations of symmetric, positive-definite $A \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n}$. Chen-Epperly-Tropp-Webber showed, among many other things, that the randomly pivoted partial Cholesky algorithm…
Statistical properties for the recurrence of particles in an oval billiard with a hole in the boundary are discussed. The hole is allowed to move in the boundary under two different types of motion: (i) counterclockwise periodic circulation…
We analyze what happens to the average duration of a game of Chutes and Ladders as the probability of rolling $\delta \in \{ 1,2,3,4,5,6\}$ approaches 100%. We utilize Markov models, and Monte Carlo simulations in Python. We also introduce…
We consider the occupancy problem where balls are thrown independently at infinitely many boxes with fixed positive frequencies. It is well known that the random number of boxes occupied by the first n balls is asymptotically normal if its…
Consider a string of $n$ positions, i.e. a discrete string of length $n$. Units of length $k$ are placed at random on this string in such a way that they do not overlap, and as often as possible, i.e. until all spacings between neighboring…
We study variants of the secretary problem, where $N$, the number of candidates, is a random variable, and the decision maker wants to maximize the probability of success -- picking the largest number among the $N$ candidates -- using only…
In this note we show that the singular probability of the adjacency matrix of a random $d$-regular graph on $n$ vertices, where $d$ is fixed and $n \to \infty$, is bounded by $n^{-1/3+o(1)}$. This improves a recent bound by Huang. Our…
This paper aims to study the graph radii and diameters induced by the $k$-dimensional versions of the well-known six international chess pieces on every finite $\{n \times n \times \dots \times n\} \subseteq \mathbb{Z}^k$ lattice since they…
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…
A new version of a strong law of large numbers for a ``good'' pairwise independent sequence of random variables (r.v.'s) with a small part of ``bad'' dependent r.v.'s is proposed. The main goal is to relax the assumption on the existence of…
This paper studies the game of guessing riffle-shuffled cards with complete feedback. A deck of $n$ cards labelled 1 to $n$ is riffle-shuffled once and placed on a table. A player tries to guess the cards from top and is given complete…
Modern chess engines significantly outperform human players and are essential for evaluating positions and move quality. These engines assign a numerical evaluation $E$ to positions, indicating an advantage for either white or black, but…
In this article, we study the behavior of a broad family of real sequences derived from randomized one-pile subtraction games. For any subtraction set $S$, we allow any valid number of chips $s\in S$ to be removed at equal probability at…
Assume that letters (from a finite alphabet) in a text form a Markov chain. We track two distinct words, $U$ and $D$. A gambler gains 1 point for each occurrence of $U$ (including overlapping occurrences) and loses 1 point for each…
A 5x5 board is the smallest board on which one can set up all kind of chess pieces as a start position. We consider Gardner's minichess variant in which all pieces are set as in a standard chessboard (from Rook to King). This game has…
A partial Latin square of order $n$ can be represented by a $3$-dimensional chess-board of size $n\times n\times n$ with at most $n^2$ non-attacking rooks. In Latin squares, a subsystem and its most distant mate together have as many rooks…
This paper aims to determine the exact success probability at each step of Shor's algorithm. Although the literature usually provides a lower bound on this probability, we present an improved bound. The derived formulas enable the…
In the gambling foundation of probability theory, rationality requires that a subject should always (never) find desirable all nonnegative (negative) gambles, because no matter the result of the experiment the subject never (always)…
The N-queens problem is to find the position of N queens on an N by N chess board such that no queens attack each other. The excluded diagonals N-queens problem is a variation where queens cannot be placed on some predefined fields along…