Related papers: Move first, and become unbeatable: Strategy study …
In the natural generalization of tic-tac-toe to an $n \times n \times n$ board where $n \in \mathbb{N}$, it is known that the first player has a winning strategy if $n \leq 4$ and that either player can force a draw if $n \geq 8$. The…
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…
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe is a variant of the popular Tic-Tac-Toe game. Two players compete to win three aligned "fields," with each field constituting its own miniature tic-tac-toe game. Each move determines which field the next player must…
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe is a variant of the well known tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) board game. Two players compete to win three aligned "fields", each of them being a tic-tac-toe game. Each move determines which field the next player…
The game of tic-tac-toe is well known. In particular, in its classic version it is famous for being unwinnable by either player. While classically it is played on a grid, it is natural to consider the effect of playing the game on richer…
Positional games are a well-studied class of combinatorial game. In their usual form, two players take turns to play moves in a set (`the board'), and certain subsets are designated as `winning': the first person to occupy such a set wins…
In many combinatorial games, one can prove that the first player wins under best play using a simple but non-constructive argument called strategy-stealing. This work is about the complexity behind these proofs: how hard is it to actually…
Combinatorial Game Theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that studies sequential 2-player games with perfect information. Normal play is the convention where a player who cannot move loses. Here, we generalize…
Game theory is the standard tool used to model strategic interactions in evolutionary biology and social science. Traditional game theory studies the equilibria of simple games. But is traditional game theory applicable if the game is…
The transitivity of preferences is one of the basic assumptions used in the theory of games and decisions. It is often equated with rationality of choice and is considered useful in building rankings. Intransitive preferences are considered…
We consider playing the game of Tic-Tac-Toe on block designs BIBD($v, k, \lambda$) and transversal designs TD($k, n$). Players take turns choosing points and the first player to complete a block wins the game. We show that triple systems,…
In this paper, we perform a minimalistic quantization of the classical game of tic-tac-toe, by allowing superpositions of classical moves. In order for the quantum game to reduce properly to the classical game, we require legal quantum…
In multi-agent settings, game theory is a natural framework for describing the strategic interactions of agents whose objectives depend upon one another's behavior. Trajectory games capture these complex effects by design. In competitive…
Combinatorial games are two-player games of pure strategy where the players, usually called Left and Right, move alternately. In this paper, we introduce Cheating Robot games. These arise from simultaneous-play combinatorial games where one…
This paper studies sequential quantum games under the assumption that the moves of the players are drawn from groups and not just plain sets. The extra group structure makes possible to easily derive some very general results characterizing…
Repeated games have a long tradition in the behavioral sciences and evolutionary biology. Recently, strategies were discovered that permit an unprecedented level of control over repeated interactions by enabling a player to unilaterally…
We analyze misere play of impartial tic-tac-toe---a game suggested by Bob Koca in which both players make X's on the board, and the first player to complete three-in-a-row loses. This game was recently discussed on mathoverflow.net in a…
Imitation is simple behavior which uses successful actions of others in order to deal with one's own problems. Because success of imitation generally depends on whether profit of an imitating agent coincides with those of other agents or…
Tic Tac Toe is amongst the most well-known games. It has already been shown that it is a biased game, giving more chances to win for the first player leaving only a draw or a loss as possibilities for the opponent, assuming both the players…
A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. The main object of combinatorial game theory is to obtain the outcome, which player has a winning strategy, of a given combinatorial game. Positions of…