Related papers: Bluffing in Scrabble
Algorithms for equilibrium computation generally make no attempt to ensure that the computed strategies are understandable by humans. For instance the strategies for the strongest poker agents are represented as massive binary files. In…
In many game-theoretic settings, agents are challenged with taking decisions against the uncertain behavior exhibited by others. Often, this uncertainty arises from multiple sources, e.g., incomplete information, limited computation,…
We consider two-player normal form games where each player has the same finite strategy set. The payoffs of each player are assumed to be i.i.d. random variables with a continuous distribution. We show that, with high probability, the…
We study a combinatorial game derived from a problem in the German National Mathematics Competition. In this game, two players take turns removing numbers from a finite set of natural numbers, aiming to satisfy a certain divisibility…
In 1998, Ciucu published "No-feedback card guessing for dovetail shuffles", an article which gives the optimal guessing strategy for $n$ cards ($n$ even) after $k$ riffle shuffles whenever $k>2\log_{2}\left(n\right)$. We discuss in this…
We consider games played on finite graphs, whose goal is to obtain a trace belonging to a given set of winning traces. We focus on those states from which Player 1 cannot force a win. We explore and compare several criteria for establishing…
We introduce a new virtual environment for simulating a card game known as "Big 2". This is a four-player game of imperfect information with a relatively complicated action space (being allowed to play 1,2,3,4 or 5 card combinations from an…
Finding a counterfeit coin with the different weight from a set of visually identical coin using a balance, usually a two-armed balance, known as the balance question, is an intersting and inspiring question. Its variants involve…
We discuss the game of Zombie Dice, published by Steve Jackson Games. This game includes green, yellow, and red dice. Each die has brain, footprint, and shotgun symbols on it, with each color of dice having a different amount of each…
We study a sequential coin-flipping game in which a player starts with~$n$ coins, each landing heads independently with probability~$p$. In each round the player flips all remaining coins and must set aside at least one coin showing heads;…
Simple stochastic games are two-player zero-sum stochastic games with turn-based moves, perfect information, and reachability winning conditions. We present two new algorithms computing the values of simple stochastic games. Both of them…
In this paper we study the computational complexity of the game of Scrabble. We prove the PSPACE-completeness of a derandomized model of the game, answering an open question of Erik Demaine and Robert Hearn.
In this paper we analyse tiebreak results from some tennis players in order to investigate whether we are able to identify some strategy in this crucial moment of the game. We compared the observed results with a binomial distribution…
Betting strategies are often expressed formally as martingales. A martingale is called integer-valued if each bet must be an integer value. Integer-valued strategies correspond to the fact that in most betting situations, there is a minimum…
We study a variation of the minority game. There are N agents. Each has to choose between one of two alternatives everyday, and there is reward to each member of the smaller group. The agents cannot communicate with each other, but try to…
There seems to be an upper limit to predicting the outcome of matches in (semi-)professional sports. Recent work has proposed that this is due to chance and attempts have been made to simulate the distribution of win percentages to identify…
This paper investigates mixed strategies in dynamic games with perfect information. We present an example to show that a player may obtain higher payoff by playing mixed strategy. By contrast, the main result of the paper shows that every…
The transitivity of preferences is one of the basic assumptions used in the theory of games and decisions. It is often equated with rationality of choice and is considered useful in building rankings. Intransitive preferences are considered…
The probability of a given candidate winning a future election is worked out in closed form as a function of (i) the current support rates for each candidate, (ii) the relative positioning of the candidates within the political spectrum,…
Several variations of hat guessing games have been popularly discussed in recreational mathematics. In a typical hat guessing game, after initially coordinating a strategy, each of $n$ players is assigned a hat from a given color set.…