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While the game Connect-Four has been solved mathematically and the best move can be effectively computed with search based methods, a strong solution in the form of a look-up table was believed to be infeasible. In this paper, we revisit a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-07-09 Markus Böck

We present Solrex,an automated solver for the game of Reverse Hex.Reverse Hex, also known as Rex, or Misere Hex, is the variant of the game of Hex in which the player who joins her two sides loses the game. Solrex performs a mini-max search…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2017-07-04 Kenny Young , Ryan B. Hayward

We investigate a game played between two players, Maker and Breaker, on a countably infinite complete graph where the vertices are the rational numbers. The players alternately claim unclaimed edges. It is Maker's goal to have after…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-23 Nathan Bowler , Florian Gut

Lights Out! is a game played on a $5 \times 5$ grid of lights, or more generally on a graph. Pressing lights on the grid allows the player to turn off neighboring lights. The goal of the game is to start with a given initial configuration…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-02-16 Bryan Curtis , Jonathan Earl , David Livingston , Bryan Shader

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…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-07-12 J. Robert Johnson , Imre Leader , Mark Walters

The Honey-Bee game is a two-player board game that is played on a connected hexagonal colored grid or (in a generalized setting) on a connected graph with colored nodes. In a single move, a player calls a color and thereby conquers all the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2011-02-16 Rudolf Fleischer , Gerhard J. Woeginger

By now, the Maker-Breaker connectivity game on a complete graph $K_n$ or on a random graph $G\sim G_{n,p}$ is well studied. Recently, London and Pluh\'ar suggested a variant in which Maker always needs to choose her edges in such a way that…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2022-08-22 Dennis Clemens , Laurin Kirsch , Yannick Mogge

This paper investigates the use of game theoretic representations to represent and learn how to play interactive games such as Connect Four. We combine aspects of learning by demonstration, active learning, and game theory allowing a robot…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-01-14 Ali Ayub , Alan R. Wagner

Numberlink is a puzzle game in which players are given a grid with nodes marked with a natural number, $n$, and asked to create $n$ connections with neighboring nodes. Connections can only be made with top, bottom, left and right neighbors,…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2022-10-07 Andrea Arauza Rivera , Matt McClinton , David Smith

In this paper we study the (a : b) Maker-Breaker Connectivity game, played on the edge-set of the complete graph on n vertices. We determine the winner for almost all values of a and b.

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-08-14 Dan Hefetz , Mirjana Rakić , Miloš Stojaković

We study the following combinatorial game played by two players, Alice and Bob, which generalizes the Pizza game considered by Brown, Winkler and others. Given a connected graph G with nonnegative weights assigned to its vertices, the…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2013-08-07 Josef Cibulka , Jan Kynčl , Viola Mészáros , Rudolf Stolař , Pavel Valtr

We define the Sign Game as a two-player game played on a simple undirected mathematical graph $G$. The players alternate turns, assigning vertices of $G$ either $1$ or $-1$, and edges take on the value of the product of their endvertices.…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-12 Liz Blum , Lily Brustkern , Rosetta Hawkins , Neil R. Nicholson , Ranjan Rohatgi

Consider the following one-player game played on an initially empty graph with $n$ vertices. At each stage a randomly selected new edge is added and the player must immediately color the edge with one of $r$ available colors. Her objective…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-03-25 Andreas Noever

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…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2008-09-25 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Luca de Alfaro , Thomas A. Henzinger

"Solitaire Chess" is a logic puzzle published by Thinkfun, that can be seen as a single person version of traditional chess. Given a chess board with some chess pieces of the same color placed on it, the task is to capture all pieces but…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2015-01-27 Jens Maßberg

In the Maker-Breaker resolving game, two players named Resolver and Spoiler alternately select unplayed vertices of a given graph $G$. The aim of Resolver is to select all the vertices of some resolving set of $G$, while Spoiler aims to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-02 Savitha K S , Sandi Klavžar , Tijo James

The network coloring game has been proposed in the literature of social sciences as a model for conflict-resolution circumstances. The players of the game are the vertices of a graph with $n$ vertices and maximum degree $\Delta$. The game…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2022-04-01 Nikolaos Fryganiotis , Symeon Papavassiliou , Christos Pelekis

We define a variant of the two-dimensional Silver Dollar game. Two coins are placed on a chessboard of unbounded size, and two players take turns choosing one of the coins and moving it. Coins are to be moved to the left or upward…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2025-06-10 Ryohei Miyadera , Enchong Li , Akito Tsujii

The $(m,n)$-online Ramsey game is a combinatorial game between two players, Builder and Painter. Starting from an infinite set of isolated vertices, Builder draws an edge on each turn and Painter immediately paints it red or blue. Builder's…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-11-06 David Conlon , Jacob Fox , Andrey Grinshpun , Xiaoyu He

The present paper deals with connected subtraction games in graphs, which are generalization of takeaway games. In a connected subtraction game, two players alternate removing a connected sub-graph from a given connected game-graph,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-17 Antoine Dailly , Julien Moncel , Aline Parreau