Related papers: When Rooks Miss: Probability through Chess
PARITY is the problem of determining the parity of a string $f$ of $n$ bits given access to an oracle that responds to a query $x\in\{0,1,...,n-1\}$ with the $x^{\rm th}$ bit of the string, $f(x)$. Classically, $n$ queries are required to…
We find a remarkable agreement between the statistics of a randomly divided interval and the observed statistical patterns and distributions found in horse racing betting markets. We compare the distribution of implied winning odds, the…
Using modular arithmetic of the ring $\mathbb{Z}_{n+1}$ we obtain a new short solution to the problem of existence of at least one solution to the $N$-Queens problem on an $N \times N$ chessboard. It was proved, that these solutions can be…
We establish a general formula for the distribution of the score in table tennis. We use this formula to derive the probability distribution (and hence the expectation and variance) of the number of rallies necessary to achieve any given…
The beautiful theory of statistical gambling, started by Dubins and Savage (for subfair games) and continued by Kelly and Breiman (for superfair games) has mostly been studied under the unrealistic assumption that we live in a continuous…
The N-Queens problem, placing all N queens in a N x N chessboard where none attack the other, is a classic problem for constraint satisfaction algorithms. While complete methods like backtracking guarantee a solution, their exponential time…
This work explains how to utilize earlier results by P. Diaconis, K. Houston-Edwards and the second author to estimate probabilities related to the 4-player gambler ruin problem. For instance, we show that the probability that a very…
In a previous work, the first and third authors studied a random knot model for all two-bridge knots using billiard table diagrams. Here we present a closed formula for the distribution of the crossing numbers of such random knots. We also…
The problem addressed concerns the determination of the average number of successive attempts of guessing a word of a certain length consisting of letters with given probabilities of occurrence. Both first- and second-order approximations…
Infinite chess is chess played on an infinite edgeless chessboard. The familiar chess pieces move about according to their usual chess rules, and each player strives to place the opposing king into checkmate. The mate-in-n problem of…
We study a game puzzle that has enjoyed recent popularity among mathematicians, computer scientist, coding theorists and even the mass press. In the game, $n$ players are fitted with randomly assigned colored hats. Individual players can…
Suppose $n$ boys and $n$ girls rank each other at random. We show that any particular girl has at least $({1\over 2}-\epsilon) \ln n$ and at most $(1+\epsilon)\ln n$ different husbands in the set of all Gale/Shapley stable matchings defined…
A tournament is an orientation of a complete graph. A vertex that can reach every other vertex within two steps is called a \emph{king}. We study the complexity of finding $k$ kings in a tournament graph. We show that the randomized query…
It is shown that under reasonable assumptions a Drake-style equation can be obtained for the probability that our universe is the result of a deliberate simulation. Evaluating loose bounds for certain terms in the equation shows that the…
Given a finite nonempty sequence of integers S, by grouping adjacent terms it is always possible to write it, possibly in many ways, as S = X Y^k, where X and Y are sequences and Y is nonempty. Choose the version which maximizes the value…
Prior work (Klochkov $\&$ Zhivotovskiy, 2021) establishes at most $O\left(\log (n)/n\right)$ excess risk bounds via algorithmic stability for strongly-convex learners with high probability. We show that under the similar common assumptions…
We consider the following cake cutting game: Alice chooses a set P of n points in the square (cake) [0,1]^2, where (0,0) is in P; Bob cuts out n axis-parallel rectangles with disjoint interiors, each of them having a point of P as the lower…
Place an obstacle with probability $1-p$ independently at each vertex of $\mathbb Z^d$, and run a simple random walk until hitting one of the obstacles. For $d\geq 2$ and $p$ strictly above the critical threshold for site percolation, we…
We introduce and study Minkowski games. These are two player games, where the players take turns to chose positions in $\mathbb{R}^d$ based on some rules. Variants include boundedness games, where one player wants to keep the positions…
Gambits are central to human decision-making. Our goal is to provide a theory of Gambits. A Gambit is a combination of psychological and technical factors designed to disrupt predictable play. Chess provides an environment to study gambits…