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Related papers: Tic-Tac-Toe on Designs

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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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-29 John W. Cain , Ioannis M. Raymond , Nora C. Källersjö

We introduce an affine version of Tic-Tac-Toe played on the finite affine space $\mathbb{F}_q^m$. Two players alternately claim points, and the first player to occupy all points of an affine subspace of dimension $n$ wins. We call this the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-25 Luca Bastioni , Alessandro Giannoni , Javier Lobillo-Olmedo

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-01-21 Peter Danziger , Melissa A. Huggan , Rehan Malik , Trent G. Marbach

The main challenge of combinatorial game theory is to handle combinatorial chaos, if one player knows the strategy better than his opponent, he is able to determine the exact results of a game. If both players are qualified competitor, the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2022-08-16 Junan Pan

We show that there is an $m=2n+o(n)$, such that, in the Maker-Breaker game played on $\Z^d$ where Maker needs to put at least $m$ of his marks consecutively in one of $n$ given winning directions, Breaker can force a draw using a pairing…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-06-01 Padmini Mukkamala , Dömötör Pálvölgyi

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…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2023-06-09 Justin Diamond

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-10-02 Thane E. Plambeck , Greg Whitehead

The triangle game introduced by Chv\'{a}tal and Erd\H{o}s (1978) is one of the most famous combinatorial games. For $n,q\in\mathbb{N}$, the $(n,q)$-triangle game is played by two players, called Maker and Breaker, on the complete graph…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-12-05 Christian Glazik , Anand Srivastav

We consider a Maker-Breaker type game on the plane, in which each player takes $t$ points on their $t^\textrm{th}$ turn. Maker wins if he obtains $n$ points on a line (in any direction) without any of Breaker's points between them. We show…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-01-08 Joshua Erde , Mark Walters

Given a tree $T=(V,E)$ on $n$ vertices, we consider the $(1 : q)$ Maker-Breaker tree embedding game ${\mathcal T}_n$. The board of this game is the edge set of the complete graph on $n$ vertices. Maker wins ${\mathcal T}_n$ if and only if…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-10-15 Asaf Ferber , Dan Hefetz , Michael Krivelevich

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2020-06-09 Guillaume Bertholon , Rémi Géraud-Stewart , Axel Kugelmann , Théo Lenoir , David Naccache

In this work, we investigate Maker-Breaker directed triangle games, a directionally constrained variant of the classical Maker-Breaker triangle game. Our board of interest is a tournament, and the winning sets are all $3$-cycles present in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-20 Hrishikesh Jagtap , Moumanti Podder

Maker-Breaker subgraph games are among the most famous combinatorial games. For given $n,q \in \mathbb{N}$ and a subgraph $C$ of the complete graph $K_n$, the two players, called Maker and Breaker, alternately claim edges of $K_n$. In each…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-06-27 Matthias Sowa , Anand Srivastav

In the Maker-Breaker domination game played on a graph $G$, Dominator's goal is to select a dominating set and Staller's goal is to claim a closed neighborhood of some vertex. We study the cases when Staller can win the game. If Dominator…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-02-14 Csilla Bujtás , Pakanun Dokyeesun , Sandi Klavžar

In the $(a,b)$-biased Maker-Breaker domination game, two players alternately select unplayed vertices in a graph $G$ such that Dominator selects $a$ and Staller selects $b$ vertices per move. Dominator wins if the vertices he selected…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-10-29 Boštjan Brešar , Csilla Bujtás , Pakanun Dokyeesun , Tanja Dravec

We study two-player positional games where Maker and Breaker take turns to select a previously unoccupied number in $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$. Maker wins if the numbers selected by Maker contain a solution to the equation \[…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-06-26 Collier Gaiser , Paul Horn

We introduce the Maker-Breaker domination game, a two player game on a graph. At his turn, the first player, Dominator, select a vertex in order to dominate the graph while the other player, Staller, forbids a vertex to Dominator in order…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2018-09-19 Eric Duchêne , Valentin Gledel , Aline Parreau , Gabriel Renault

A large class of Positional Games are defined on the complete graph on $n$ vertices. The players, Maker and Breaker, take the edges of the graph in turns, and Maker wins iff his subgraph has a given -- usually monotone -- property. Here we…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-05-24 József Balogh , Ryan R. Martin , András Pluhár

One of the main objective of this paper is to relate Beck's conjecture for k-in-a-row games. The conjecture states that playing on the same board Picker is better off in a Chooser-Picker game than the second player in the Maker-Breaker…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-04-15 András Csernenszky

The Maker-Breaker domination game (MBD game) is a two-player game played on a graph $G$ by Dominator and Staller. They alternately select unplayed vertices of $G$. The goal of Dominator is to form a dominating set with the set of vertices…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-10 Athira Divakaran , Tanja Dravec , Tijo James , Sandi Klavžar , Latha S Nair
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