Related papers: Backgammon is Hard
We study the computational complexity of controlling the result of an election by breaking ties strategically. This problem is equivalent to the problem of deciding the winner of an election under parallel universes tie-breaking. When the…
We study \emph{partial-information} two-player turn-based games on graphs with omega-regular objectives, when the partial-information player has \emph{limited memory}. Such games are a natural formalization for reactive synthesis when the…
We consider the following game that has been used as a way of testing claims of extrasensory perception (ESP). One is given a deck of $mn$ cards comprised of $n$ distinct types each of which appears exactly $m$ times: this deck is shuffled…
Election systems based on scores generally determine the winner by computing the score of each candidate and the winner is the candidate with the best score. It would be natural to expect that computing the winner of an election is at least…
We provide answers to natural combinatorial questions which arise from learning the rules to Tak. We solve the discarded cases of the $3\times 3$ game not previously considered by Joshua Achiam, showing that Player $1$ has a forced win from…
We are going to show that some variants of a puzzle called Pull in which the boxes have handles (i.e. we can only pull the boxes in certain directions) are NP-hard
In combinatorial game theory, the winning player for a position in normal play is analyzed and characterized via algebraic operations. Such analyses define a value for each position, called a game value. A game (ruleset) is called universal…
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 study an evolutionary game of chance in which the probabilities for different outcomes (e.g., heads or tails) depend on the amount wagered on those outcomes. The game is perhaps the simplest possible probabilistic game in which…
We investigate multi-round team competitions between two teams, where each team selects one of its players simultaneously in each round and each player can play at most once. The competition defines an extensive-form game with perfect…
We propose and analyse a 2-parameter family of 2-player games on two heaps of tokens, and present a strategy based on a class of sequences. The strategy looks easy, but is actually hard. A class of exotic numeration systems is then used,…
We revisit the complexity of deciding, given a {\it bimatrix game,} whether it has a {\it Nash equilibrium} with certain natural properties; such decision problems were early known to be ${\mathcal{NP}}$-hard~\cite{GZ89}. We show that…
We prove that deciding whether the Runner can win this turn (mate-in-1) in the Netrunner card game generalized to allow decks to contain an arbitrary number of copies of a card is weakly NP-hard. We also prove that deciding whether the Corp…
We consider the pebble game on DAGs with bounded fan-in introduced in [Paterson and Hewitt '70] and the reversible version of this game in [Bennett '89], and study the question of how hard it is to decide exactly or approximately the number…
In a strong game played on the edge set of a graph G there are two players, Red and Blue, alternating turns in claiming previously unclaimed edges of G (with Red playing first). The winner is the first one to claim all the edges of some…
Control and manipulation are two of the most studied types of attacks on elections. In this paper, we study the complexity of control attacks on elections in which there are manipulators. We study both the case where the "chair" who is…
There are several approaches for using computers in deriving mathematical proofs. For their illustration, we provide an in-depth study of using computer support for proving one complex combinatorial conjecture -- correctness of a strategy…
Partially-ordered set games, also called poset games, are a class of two-player combinatorial games. The playing field consists of a set of elements, some of which are greater than other elements. Two players take turns removing an element…
The computational complexity of winner determination is a classical and important problem in computational social choice. Previous work based on worst-case analysis has established NP-hardness of winner determination for some classic voting…
We establish that the subgame perfect equilibrium (SPE) threshold problem for mean-payoff games is NP-complete. While the SPE threshold problem was recently shown to be decidable (in doubly exponential time) and NP-hard, its exact worst…