Related papers: A Practical Method for Preventing Forced Wins in U…

We introduce and analyze a natural game formulated as follows. In this one-person game, the player is given a random permutation $A=(a_1,\dots, a_n)$ of a multiset $M$ of $n$ reals that sum up to $0$, where each of the $n!$ permutation…

This paper investigates repeated win-lose coordination games (WLC-games). We analyse which protocols are optimal for these games, covering both the worst case and average case scenarios, i,e., optimizing the guaranteed and expected…

Shortest-path games are two-player zero-sum games played on a graph equipped with integer weights. One player, that we call Min, wants to reach a target set of states while minimising the total weight, and the other one has an antagonistic…

We study two-player reachability games on finite graphs. At each state the interaction between the players is concurrent and there is a stochastic Nature. Players also play stochastically. The literature tells us that 1) Player B, who wants…

Randomized mechanisms can have good normative properties compared to their deterministic counterparts. However, randomized mechanisms are problematic in several ways such as in their verifiability. We propose here to derandomize such…

Recently Wilson [Ann. Appl. Probab. 14 (2004) 274--325] introduced an important new technique for lower bounding the mixing time of a Markov chain. In this paper we extend Wilson's technique to find lower bounds of the correct order for…

In this work we present a detailed analysis using the Markov chain theory of some versions of the truel game in which three players try to eliminate each other in a series of one-to-one competitions, using the rules of the game. Besides…

We consider concurrent games played on graphs. At every round of a game, each player simultaneously and independently selects a move; the moves jointly determine the transition to a successor state. Two basic objectives are the safety…

In robot games on Z, two players add integers to a counter. Each player has a finite set from which he picks the integer to add, and the objective of the first player is to let the counter reach 0. We present an exponential-time algorithm…

We study an optimal control problem arising from a generalization of rock-paper-scissors in which the number of strategies may be selected from any positive odd number greater than 1 and in which the payoff to the winner is controlled by a…

We study stochastic multi-armed bandits with many players. The players do not know the number of players, cannot communicate with each other and if multiple players select a common arm they collide and none of them receive any reward. We…

The traditional approach to choosing moves in game-playing programs is the minimax procedure. The general belief underlying its use is that increasing search depth improves play. Recent research has shown that given certain simplifying…

Subset take-away is a two-player game involving a fixed finite set A. Players alternate choosing a proper, non-empty subset of A, with the condition that one may not name a set containing a set that was named earlier. A player unable to…

We analyze the duration of the unbiased Avoider-Enforcer game for three basic positional games. All the games are played on the edges of the complete graph on $n$ vertices, and Avoider's goal is to keep his graph outerplanar, diamond-free…

We consider two-player combinatorial games in which the graph of positions is random and perhaps infinite, focusing on directed Galton-Watson trees. As the offspring distribution is varied, a game can undergo a phase transition, in which…

We calculated a fixed strategy that minimizes the average number of guesses (minimum strategy) for the number-guessing game MOO by exhaustive search. Although the minimum strategy for a similar game, mastermind, has been reported, this…

I give a simple analysis of the game that I previously published in Scientific American which shows the paradoxical behavior whereby two losing games randomly combine to form a winning game. The game, modeled on a random walk, requires only…

Classical voting rules assume that ballots are complete preference orders over candidates. However, when the number of candidates is large enough, it is too costly to ask the voters to rank all candidates. We suggest to fix a rank k, to ask…

This paper examines two different variants of the Ludo game, involving multiple dice and a fixed number of total turns. Within each variant, multiple game lengths (total no. of turns) are considered. To compare the two variants, a set of…

The game of plates and olives was originally formulated by Nicolaescu and encodes the evolution of the topology of the sublevel sets of Morse functions. We consider a random variant of this game. The process starts with an empty table.…