Related papers: Phutball Draws
We consider random-turn positional games, introduced by Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson in 2007. A $p$-random-turn positional game is a two-player game, played the same as an ordinary positional game, except that instead of alternating…
Mahjong is a very popular tile-based game commonly played by four players. Each player begins with a hand of 13 tiles and, in turn, players draw and discard (i.e., change) tiles until they complete a legal hand using a 14th tile. In this…
In 1979, David Fabian found a complete game of two-person Chinese Checkers in 30 moves (15 by each player) [Martin Gardner, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers, MAA, 1997]. This solution requires that the two players cooperate to generate a…
In the game of Scrabble, letter tiles are drawn uniformly at random from a bag. The variability of possible draws as the game progresses is a source of variation that makes it more likely for an inferior player to win a head-to-head match…
We explore some strategies which tend to perform well in the IPD. We start off by showing the significance of Tit-For-Tat strategies in evolutionary game theory. This is followed by a theoretical derivation of zero-determinant strategies,…
We give a simple proof of that determining solvability of Shisen-Sho boards is NP-complete. Furthermore, we show that under realistic assumptions, one can compute in logarithmic time if two tiles form a playable pair. We combine an…
The author has long enjoyed using the CSP refinement checker FDR to solve puzzles, as witnessed by examples in \cite{tpc,ucs}. Recent experiments have shown that a number of games of patience (card games for one) are now well within bounds.…
Computer vision models have seen increased usage in sports, and reinforcement learning (RL) is famous for beating humans in strategic games such as Chess and Go. In this paper, we are interested in building upon these advances and examining…
We introduce the game of infinite Hex, extending the familiar finite game to natural play on the infinite hexagonal lattice. Whereas the finite game is a win for the first player, we prove in contrast that infinite Hex is a draw -- both…
The Game of Cycles, introduced by Su (2020), is played on a simple connected planar graph together with its bounded cells, and players take turns marking edges with arrows according to a sink-source rule that gives the game a topological…
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…
This paper considers the flight dynamics of the ball in the sport of pickleball. Various simplifications are introduced according to the features of the game. These simplifications and some approximations enable straightforward coding to…
The classical inner and outer billiards can be formulated in variational terms, with length and area as the respective generating functions. The other two combinations, ``inner with area'' and ``outer with length,'' are more recently…
The Tower of Hanoi game is a classical puzzle in recreational mathematics (Lucas 1883) which also has a strong record in pure mathematics. In a borderland between these two areas we find the characterization of the minimal number of moves,…
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…
We show the value of positions of the combinatorial game ``Toads and Frogs''. We present new values of starting positions. Moreover, we discuss the values of all positions with exactly one $\Box, \regT^{a}\Box\Box \regF^{a}, \regT^{a} \Box…
Here, we present a variant of the sliding coins game. Two coins are placed on distinct squares of a semi-infinite linear board with squares numbered $0, 1, 2, dots, $. Two players take turns and move a coin to a lower unoccupied square.…
Closed drafting or "pick and pass" is a popular game mechanic where each round players select a card or other playable element from their hand and pass the rest to the next player. In this paper, we establish first-principle methods for…
We characterize the initial positions from which the first player has a winning strategy in a certain two-player game. This provides a generalization of Hall's theorem. Vizing's edge coloring theorem follows from a special case.
We study biased {\em orientation games}, in which the board is the complete graph $K_n$, and Maker and Breaker take turns in directing previously undirected edges of $K_n$. At the end of the game, the obtained graph is a tournament. Maker…