Related papers: Chess is hard even for a single player
We consider the following two-player game: Maxi and Mini start with the empty graph on $n$ vertices and take turns, always adding one additional edge to the graph such that the chromatic number is at most $k$, where $k \in \mathbb{N}$ is a…
The game of peg solitaire on graphs was introduced by Beeler and Hoilman in 2011. In this game, pegs are initially placed on all but one vertex of a graph $G$. If $xyz$ forms a path in $G$ and there are pegs on vertices $x$ and $y$ but not…
Peg solitaire is a game generalized to connected graphs by Beeler and Hoilman. In the game pegs are placed on all but one vertex. If $xyz$ form a 3-vertex path and $x$ and $y$ each have a peg but $z$ does not, then we can remove the pegs at…
A king in a directed graph is a node from which each node in the graph can be reached via paths of length at most two. There is a broad literature on tournaments (completely oriented digraphs), and it has been known for more than half a…
Automatic chess problem or puzzle composition typically involves generating and testing various different positions, sometimes using particular piece sets. Once a position has been generated, it is then usually tested for positional…
In this paper we introduce a new game; in this game there are two players who play as rival pirate gangs. The goal is to gather more treasure than your rival. The game is played on a graph and a player gathers treasure by moving to an…
The network coloring game has been proposed in the literature of social sciences as a model for conflict-resolution circumstances. The players of the game are the vertices of a graph with $n$ vertices and maximum degree $\Delta$. The game…
A positional game is a game where two players sequentially label vertices of a hypergraph, consisting of a board and a collection of winning sets, with colors assigned to each player until all vertices of the board are claimed. The first…
We consider the following two-player game on a graph. A token is located at a vertex, and the players take turns to move it along an edge to a vertex that has not been visited before. A player who cannot move loses. We analyze outcomes with…
We prove computational intractability of variants of checkers: (1) deciding whether there is a move that forces the other player to win in one move is NP-complete; (2) checkers where players must always be able to jump on their turn is…
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…
Game coloring is a well-studied two-player game in which each player properly colors one vertex of a graph at a time until all the vertices are colored. An `eternal' version of game coloring is introduced in this paper in which the vertices…
A simple game $(N,v)$ is given by a set $N$ of $n$ players and a partition of~$2^N$ into a set~$\mathcal{L}$ of losing coalitions~$L$ with value $v(L)=0$ that is closed under taking subsets and a set $\mathcal{W}$ of winning coalitions $W$…
A well-known chessboard problem is that of placing eight queens on the chessboard so that no two queens are able to attack each other. (Recall that a queen can attack anything on the same row, column, or diagonal as itself.) This problem is…
In the game of Cops and Robbers, a team of cops attempts to capture a robber on a graph $G$. All players occupy vertices of $G$. The game operates in rounds; in each round the cops move to neighboring vertices, after which the robber does…
The game of Paintbucket was recently introduced by Amundsen and Erickson. It is played on a rectangular grid of black and white pixels. The players alternately fill in one of their opponent's connected components with their own color, until…
Due to the lack of coordination, it is unlikely that the selfish players of a strategic game reach a socially good state. A possible way to cope with selfishness is to compute a desired outcome (if it is tractable) and impose it. However…
The present paper deals with connected subtraction games in graphs, which are generalization of takeaway games. In a connected subtraction game, two players alternate removing a connected sub-graph from a given connected game-graph,…
Sprout is a two-player pen and paper game which starts with $n$ vertices, and the players take turns to join two pre-existing dots by a subdivided edge while keeping the graph sub-cubic planar at all times. The first player not being able…
On the n x n chessboard, the move totals of distinct pieces satisfy a small number of striking arithmetic identities. The total diagonal mobility of the bishop and the total 8-neighbor mobility of the king are exactly proportional, with…