Related papers: Counting Nonattacking Chess Piece Placements: Bish…

We introduce a generalization of "Solo Chess", a single-player variant of the game that can be played on chess.com. The standard version of the game is played on a regular 8 x 8 chessboard by a single player, with only white pieces, using…

Using a simple factorization scheme we obtain the recurrence-shift relations of the polynomial functions of Aldaya, Bisquert and Navarro-Salas (ABNS), F_n^N(\frac\omega c\sqrtN x), i.e., one-step first-order differential relations referring…

In an investigation of the applications of Combinatorial Game Theory to chess, we construct novel mutual Zugzwang positions, explain an otherwise mysterious pawn endgame from "A Guide to Chess Endings" (Euwe and Hooper), show positions…

We consider the chessboard pebbling problem analyzed by Chung, Graham, Morrison and Odlyzko [3]. We study the number of reachable configurations $G(k)$ and a related double sequence $G(k,m)$. Exact expressions for these are derived, and we…

Positions of chess players in intransitive (rock-paper-scissors) relations are considered. Namely, position A of White is preferable (it should be chosen if choice is possible) to position B of Black, position B of Black is preferable to…

Quint and Shubik (1997) conjectured that a non-degenerate n-by-n game has at most 2^n-1 Nash equilibria in mixed strategies. The conjecture is true for n at most 4 but false for n=6 or larger. We answer it positively for the remaining case…

Unlike tic-tac-toe or checkers, in which optimal play leads to a draw, it is not known whether optimal play in chess ends in a win for White, a win for Black, or a draw. But after White moves first in chess, if Black has a double move…

We define a weighted analog for the multidimensional Catalan numbers, obtain matrix-based recurrences for some of them, and give conditions under which they are periodic. Building on this framework, we introduce two new sequences of…

This short note reports a master theorem on tight asymptotic solutions to divide-and-conquer recurrences with more than one recursive term: for example, T(n) = 1/4 T(n/16) + 1/3 T(3n/5) + 4 T(n/100) + 10 T(n/300) + n^2.

This paper is an exposition of algorithms for finding one or all equilibria of a bimatrix game (a two-player game in strategic form) in the style of a chapter in a graduate textbook. Using labeled "best-response polytopes", we present the…

In this paper, we derive several formulas of counting families of non-intersecting paths for two-sided ladder-shaped regions. As an application, we give a new proof to a combinatorial interpretation of Fibonacci numbers obtained by G.…

Correlation functions in a dynamic quartic matrix model are obtained from the two-point function through a recurrence relation. This paper gives the explicit solution of the recurrence by mapping it bijectively to a two-fold nested…

Cops and robbers is a pursuit-evasion game played on graphs. We completely classify the cop numbers for $n \times n$ knight graphs and queen graphs. This completes the classification of the cop numbers for all $n \times n$ classical chess…

Infinite chess is chess played on an infinite edgeless chessboard. The familiar chess pieces move about according to their usual chess rules, and each player strives to place the opposing king into checkmate. The mate-in-n problem of…

The random-to-top and the riffle shuffle are two well-studied methods for shuffling a deck of cards. These correspond to the symmetric group $S_n$, i.e., the Coxeter group of type $A_{n-1}$. In this paper, we give analogous shuffles for the…

Dueling bandit is a variant of the Multi-armed bandit to learn the binary relation by comparisons. Most work on the dueling bandit has targeted transitive relations, that is, totally/partially ordered sets, or assumed at least the existence…

In 1983 the chess periodical EG published a summary of a letter from Julius Telesin outlining how a king, a bishop and a knight can checkmate a lonely king on an arbitrarily large chessboard. The Telesin checkmating procedure doesn't seem…

We extend the study of the 2-Solo Chess problem which was first introduced by Aravind, Misra, and Mittal in 2022. 2-Solo Chess is a single-player variant of chess in which the player must clear the board via captures such that only one…

We propose a generalization of positional games, supplementing them with a restriction on the order in which the elements of the board are allowed to be claimed. We introduce poset positional games, which are positional games with an…

We analyze the computational complexity of several new variants of edge-matching puzzles. First we analyze inequality (instead of equality) constraints between adjacent tiles, proving the problem NP-complete for strict inequalities but…