Related papers: Permutations of counters on a table

The $k$-majority game is played with $n$ numbered balls, each coloured with one of two colours. It is given that there are at least $k$ balls of the majority colour, where $k$ is a fixed integer greater than $n/2$. On each turn the player…

Permutation is the different arrangements that can be made with a given number of things taking some or all of them at a time. The notation P(n,r) is used to denote the number of permutations of n things taken r at a time. Permutation is…

Consider a permutation $\sigma\in S_n$ as a deck of cards numbered from 1 to $n$ and laid out in a row, where $\sigma_j$ denotes the number of the card that is in the $j$-th position from the left.\rm\ We study some probabilistic and…

We give a simple proof that assuming the Exponential Time Hypothesis (ETH), determining the winner of a Rabin game cannot be done in time $2^{o(k \log k)} \cdot n^{O(1)}$, where $k$ is the number of pairs of vertex subsets involved in the…

We study a family of sorting match puzzles on grids, which we call permutation match puzzles. In this puzzle, each row and column of a $n \times n$ grid is labeled with an ordering constraint -- ascending (A) or descending (D) -- and the…

Let game B be Toral's cooperative Parrondo game with (one-dimensional) spatial dependence, parameterized by N (3 or more) and p_0,p_1,p_2,p_3 in [0,1], and let game A be the special case p_0=p_1=p_2=p_3=1/2. Let mu_B (resp., mu_(1/2,1/2))…

We introduce a two-player game, in which each player extends a given sequence by picking a free element in a domain D of the real line. The aim of the players is to control the parity of the number of transpositions necessary to put the…

A permutation is called {\it {block-wise simple}} if it contains no interval of the form $p_1\oplus p_2$ or $p_1 \ominus p_2$. We present this new set of permutations and explore some of its combinatorial properties. We present a generating…

We consider various probabilistic games with piles for one player or two players. In each round of the game, a player randomly chooses to add $a$ or $b$ chips to his pile under the condition that $a$ and $b$ are not necessarily positive. If…

Recall that an excedance of a permutation $\pi$ is any position $i$ such that $\pi_i > i$. Inspired by the work of Hopkins, McConville and Propp (Elec. J. Comb., 2017) on sorting using toppling, we say that a permutation is toppleable if it…

We consider random-turn positional games, introduced by Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson in 2007. A $p$-random-turn positional game is a two-player game, played the same as an ordinary positional game, except that instead of alternating…

We study a combinatorial game derived from a problem in the German National Mathematics Competition. In this game, two players take turns removing numbers from a finite set of natural numbers, aiming to satisfy a certain divisibility…

Zeckendorf proved that every positive integer $n$ can be written uniquely as the sum of non-adjacent Fibonacci numbers. We use this to create a two-player game. Given a fixed integer $n$ and an initial decomposition of $n = n F_1$, the two…

In a seminal paper, Meyer [David Meyer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1052 (1999)] described the advantages of quantum game theory by looking at the classical penny flip game. A player using a quantum strategy can win against a classical player…

We prove that if x^m + c*x^n permutes the prime field GF(p), where m>n>0 and c is in GF(p)^*, then gcd(m-n,p-1) > sqrt{p} - 1. Conversely, we prove that if q>=4 and m>n>0 are fixed and satisfy gcd(m-n,q-1) > 2q*(log log q)/(log q), then…

The group algebra of the permutation group is spanned by a set of elements called projectors. The coordinates of permutations expanded in projectors are matrix elements of irreducible representations. The projectors of the permutation group…

Zeckendorf proved that every natural number $n$ can be expressed uniquely as a sum of non-consecutive Fibonacci numbers, called its Zeckendorf decomposition. Baird-Smith, Epstein, Flint, and Miller created the Zeckendorf game, a two-player…

At some places (see the references) Martin Erickson describes a certain game: "Two players alternately write O's (first player) and X's (second player) in the unoccupied cells of an n x n grid. The first player (if any) to occupy four cells…

This paper concerns two-player alternating play combinatorial games (Conway 1976) in the normal-play convention, i.e. last move wins. Specifically, we study impartial vector subtraction games on tuples of nonnegative integers (Golomb 1966),…

We analyze a game introduced by Andy Niedermaier, where $p$ players take turns throwing a dart at a dartboard. A player is eliminated unless his dart lands closer to the center than all previously thrown darts, in which case he goes to the…