Related papers: The combinatorial game theory of Reverse Hex
We define a two-player combinatorial game in which players take alternate turns; each turn consists on deleting a vertex of a graph, together with all the edges containing such vertex. If any vertex became isolated by a player's move then…
Combinatorial Game Theory typically studies sequential rulesets with perfect information where two players alternate moves. There are rulesets with {\em entailing moves} that break the alternating play axiom and/or restrict the other…
We begin by reviewing and proving the basic facts of combinatorial game theory. We then consider scoring games (also known as Milnor games or positional games), focusing on the "fixed-length" games for which all sequences of play terminate…
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…
Regular games form a well-established class of games for analysis and synthesis of reactive systems. They include coloured Muller games, McNaughton games, Muller games, Rabin games, and Streett games. These games are played on directed…
Incomplete cooperative games generalise the classical model of cooperative games by omitting the values of some of the coalitions. This allows to incorporate uncertainty into the model and study the underlying games as well as possible…
We study turn-based quantitative games of infinite duration opposing two antagonistic players and played over graphs. This model is widely accepted as providing the adequate framework for formalizing the synthesis question for reactive…
This thesis presents some geometric insights into three different types of two player prediction games -- namely general learning task, prediction with expert advice, and online convex optimization. These games differ in the nature of the…
We propose a unifying additive theory for standard conventions in Combinatorial Game Theory, including normal-, mis\`ere- and scoring-play, studied by Berlekamp, Conway, Dorbec, Ettinger, Guy, Larsson, Milley, Neto, Nowakowski, Renault,…
The class of Guaranteed Scoring Games (GS) are two-player combinatorial games with the property that Normal-play games (Conway et. al.) are ordered embedded into GS. They include, as subclasses, the scoring games considered by Milnor…
Game theory is widely used as a behavioral model for strategic interactions in biology and social science. It is common practice to assume that players quickly converge to an equilibrium, e.g. a Nash equilibrium. This can be studied in…
This work introduces the concept of Variable Size Game Theory (VSGT), in which the number of players in a game is a strategic decision made by the players themselves. We start by discussing the main examples in game theory: dominance,…
We study a game where one player selects a random function, and the other has to guess that function, and show that with high probability the second player can correctly guess most of the random function. We apply this analysis to…
We initiate the study of simple games from the point of view of combinatorial topology. The starting premise is that the losing coalitions of a simple game can be identified with a simplicial complex. Various topological constructions and…
Graph Pebbling is a well-studied single-player game on graphs. We introduce the game of Blocking Pebbles which adapts Graph Pebbling into a two-player strategy game in order to examine it within the context of Combinatorial Game Theory.…
We study the hat guessing game on graphs. In this game, a player is placed on each vertex $v$ of a graph $G$ and assigned a colored hat from $h(v)$ possible colors. Each player makes a deterministic guess on their hat color based on the…
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…
Games are natural models for multi-agent machine learning settings, such as generative adversarial networks (GANs). The desirable outcomes from algorithmic interactions in these games are encoded as game theoretic equilibrium concepts, e.g.…
Combinatorial Game Theory has also been called `additive game theory', whenever the analysis involves sums of independent game components. Such {\em disjunctive sums} invoke comparison between games, which allows abstract values to be…
Recent progress in reinforcement learning (RL) using self-game-play has shown remarkable performance on several board games (e.g., Chess and Go) as well as video games (e.g., Atari games and Dota2). It is plausible to consider that RL,…