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In the original Parrondo game, a single player combines two losing strategies to a winning strategy. In this paper we investigate the question what happens, if two or more players play Parrondo games in a coordinated way. We introduce a…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-06-14 Sandro Breuer , Andreas Mielke

We analyze Solo Chess puzzles, where the input is an $n \times n$ board containing some standard Chess pieces of the same color, and the goal is to make a sequence of capture moves to reduce down to a single piece. Prior work analyzes this…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2023-02-06 Josh Brunner , Lily Chung , Michael Coulombe , Erik D. Demaine , Timothy Gomez , Jayson Lynch

We study two-player games with alternating moves played on infinite trees. Our main focus is on the case where the trees are full (regular) and the winning set is open (with respect to the product topology on the tree). Gale and Stewart…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-17 Dean Kraizberg

We analyze what happens to the average duration of a game of Chutes and Ladders as the probability of rolling $\delta \in \{ 1,2,3,4,5,6\}$ approaches 100%. We utilize Markov models, and Monte Carlo simulations in Python. We also introduce…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Vincent Ciarcia , Erik Insko

We consider the following simple game: We are given a table with ten slots indexed one to ten. In each of the ten rounds of the game, three dice are rolled and the numbers are added. We then put this number into any free slot. For each…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2012-09-11 Sebastian Böcker

We study an elementary two-player card game where in each round players compare cards and the holder of the smallest card wins. Using the rate equations approach, we treat the stochastic version of the game in which cards are drawn…

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems · Physics 2007-05-23 E. Ben-Naim , P. L. Krapivsky

In a strong game played on the edge set of a graph G there are two players, Red and Blue, alternating turns in claiming previously unclaimed edges of G (with Red playing first). The winner is the first one to claim all the edges of some…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-07-19 Asaf Ferber , Pascal Pfister

Minority game is a model of heterogeneous players who think inductively. In this game, each player chooses one out of two alternatives every turn and those who end up in the minority side wins. It is instructive to extend the minority game…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 F. K. Chow , H. F. Chau

Context-free games on strings are two-player rewriting games based on a set of production rules and a regular target language. In each round, the first player selects a position of the current string; then the second player replaces the…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2018-04-30 Christian Coester , Thomas Schwentick , Martin Schuster

In this paper, we consider a game played on a rectangular $m \times n$ gridded chocolate bar. Each move, a player breaks the bar along a grid line. Each move after that consists of taking any piece of chocolate and breaking it again along…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-09-22 Caleb Ji , Tanya Khovanova , Robin Park , Angela Song

We give very simple algorithms for best play in the simplest kind of Dots & Boxes endgames: those that consist entirely of loops and long chains. In every such endgame we compute the margin of victory, assuming both players maximize the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-07-17 Daniel Allcock

In this paper, we study nonzero-sum separable games, which are continuous games whose payoffs take a sum-of-products form. Included in this subclass are all finite games and polynomial games. We investigate the structure of equilibria in…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2010-04-26 Noah D. Stein , Asuman Ozdaglar , Pablo A. Parrilo

The Stackelberg equilibrium solution concept describes optimal strategies to commit to: Player 1 (termed the leader) publicly commits to a strategy and Player 2 (termed the follower) plays a best response to this strategy (ties are broken…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-08-24 Branislav Bosansky , Simina Branzei , Kristoffer Arnsfelt Hansen , Peter Bro Miltersen , Troels Bjerre Sorensen

The MandM Game involves two players who begin with I1 and I2 MandM's. During each round, each player tosses a fair coin: if the coin lands heads, that player eats one MandM, and if it lands tails, the player does not eat. If, at the end of…

Probability · Mathematics 2026-03-19 Snehesh Das , Steven J. Miller , Geremias Polanco , Yilong Wu , Wang Xiaochen , April Yang , Chris Yao

The game of nim, with its simple rules, its elegant solution and its historical importance is the quintessence of a combinatorial game, which is why it led to so many generalizations and modifications. We present a modification with a new…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-08-28 Eric Duchêne , Matthieu Dufour , Silvia Heubach , Urban Larsson

Consider a two-player game repeated N times. Player 1 can choose between two styles (for interpretability, offensive and defensive), whereas Player 2 uses a single fixed style. Let X N\,:= \#wins -\#losses for Player 1 after N games, and…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Jonatha ANSELMI , Bruno Gaujal

This paper is concerned with the controller-and-stopper stochastic differential game under a regime switching model in an infinite horizon. The state of the system consists of a number of diffusions \emph{coupled} by a continuous-time…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-02 Siyu Lv

The following general variant of deterministic Hats game is analyzed. Several sages wearing colored hats occupy the vertices of a graph, the $k$-th sage can have hats of one of $h(k)$ colors. Each sage tries to guess the color of his own…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-03-23 Konstantin Kokhas , Aleksei Latyshev , Vadim Retinsky

We introduce achievement positional games, a convention for positional games which encompasses the Maker-Maker and Maker-Breaker conventions. We consider two hypergraphs, one red and one blue, on the same vertex set. Two players, Left and…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2026-03-20 Florian Galliot , Jonas Sénizergues

This article presents a new three-player version of the bridge playing card game for the purpose of ending fixed partnerships so that the play can be more dynamic and flexible. By dynamically redefining team makeup in real time, this game…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Sourish Sarkar , Aritrabha Majumdar , Moutushi Chatterjee