Related papers: The slowest coupon collector's problem

Fix two integers $n, k$, with $n$ divisible by $k$, and consider the following game played by two players, Waiter and Client, on the edges of $K_n$. Starting with all the edges marked as unclaimed, in each round, Waiter picks two yet…

This paper formally proposes a problem about the efficient utilization of the four dimensional space-time. Given a cuboid container, a finite number of rigid cuboid items, and the time length that each item should be continuous baked in the…

We analyze the computational complexity of two 2-player games involving packing objects into a box. In the first game, players alternate drawing polycubes from a shared pile and placing them into an initially empty box in any available…

In the game of Cops and Robbers, the capture time of a graph is the minimum number of moves needed by the cops to capture the robber, assuming optimal play. We prove that the capture time of the $n$-dimensional hypercube is $\Theta (n\ln…

Given $n$ piles of tokens and a positive integer $k \leq n$, we study the following two impartial combinatorial games Nim$^1_{n, \leq k}$ and Nim$^1_{n, =k}$. In the first (resp. second) game, a player, by one move, chooses at least $1$ and…

Given a set of integers $S = \{k_1,\ k_2,...,\ k_n\}$, the Cookie Monster Problem is the problem of making all elements of the set equal 0 in the minimum number of moves. Consider the analogy of cookie jars with distinct numbers of cookies,…

Cookie Clicker is a popular online incremental game where the goal of the game is to generate as many cookies as possible. In the game you start with an initial cookie generation rate, and you can use cookies as currency to purchase various…

In the subject of optimal stopping, the classical secretary problem is concerned with optimally selecting the best of $n$ candidates when their relative ranks are observed sequentially. This problem has been extended to optimally selecting…

Online electronic coupon (e-coupon) is becoming a primary tool for e-commerce platforms to attract users to place orders. E-coupons are the digital equivalent of traditional paper coupons which provide customers with discounts or gifts. One…

We consider a game with two piles, in which two players take turn to add $a$ or $b$ chips ($a$, $b$ are not necessarily positive) randomly and independently to their respective piles. The player who collects $n$ chips first wins the game.…

The multiple knapsack problem with grouped items aims to maximize rewards by assigning groups of items among multiple knapsacks, considering knapsack capacities. Either all items in a group are assigned or none at all. We propose algorithms…

Let $a$, $b$, and $n$ be integers with $0<a<b<n$. In a certain two-player probabilistic chip-collecting game, Alice tosses a coin to determine whether she collects $a$ chips or $b$ chips. If Alice collects $a$ chips, then Bob collects $b$…

Traditionally quantitative games such as mean-payoff games and discount sum games have two players -- one trying to maximize the payoff, the other trying to minimize it. The associated decision problem, "Can Eve (the maximizer) achieve, for…

Consider the commonly known puzzle, given $k$ glass balls, find an optimal algorithm to determine the lowest floor of a building of $n$ floors from which a thrown glass ball will break. This puzzle was originally posed in its original form…

Computing lower and upper bounds on the competitive ratio of online algorithms is a challenging question: For a minimization combinatorial problem, proving a competitive ratio for a given algorithm leads to an upper bound. However computing…

Discuss several tricks for solving twenty question problems which in this paper is depicted as a guessing game. Player tries to find a ball in twenty boxes by asking as few questions as possible, and these questions are answered by only…

Suppose that $n$ items arrive online in random order and the goal is to select $k$ of them such that the expected sum of the selected items is maximized. The decision for any item is irrevocable and must be made on arrival without knowing…

We consider a matching problem, which is meaningful in team competitions, as well as in information theory, recommender systems, and assignment problems. In the competitions which we study, each competitor in a team order plays a match with…

An accumulator is a bet that presents a rather unique payout structure, in that it combines multiple bets into a wager that can generate a total payout given by the multiplication of the individual odds of its parts. These potentially…

The Possible-Winner problem asks, given an election where the voters' preferences over the set of candidates is partially specified, whether a distinguished candidate can become a winner. In this work, we consider the computational…