Related papers: Solitaire Clobber
In classical Maker-Breaker games on graphs, Maker and Breaker take turns claiming edges; Maker's goal is to claim all of some structure (e.g., a spanning tree, Hamilton cycle, etc.), while Breaker aims to stop her. The standard question…
We study the (1:b) Maker-Breaker component game, played on the edge set of a d-regular graph. Maker's aim in this game is to build a large connected component, while Breaker's aim is to not let him do so. For all values of Breaker's bias b,…
We consider two classes of constrained finite state-action stochastic games. First, we consider a two player nonzero sum single controller constrained stochastic game with both average and discounted cost criterion. We consider the same…
Deck building is a crucial component in playing Collectible Card Games (CCGs). The goal of deck building is to choose a fixed-sized subset of cards from a large card pool, so that they work well together in-game against specific opponents.…
In this paper, we study a reversible process (more precisely, a groupoid/group action) resembling the classical 15-puzzle, where the legal moves are to ``move the unique hole inside a translate of a shape $S$''. Such a process can be…
Pebbling on graphs is a two-player game which involves repeatedly moving a pebble from one vertex to another by removing another pebble from the first vertex. The pebbling number $\pi(G)$ is the least number of pebbles required so that,…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. A ordered deck of n cards labeled 1 up to n is riffle-shuffled exactly one time. Then, the goal of the game is to maximize the number of correct guesses of the cards, where one after…
We introduce a two-player game, in which each player extends a given sequence by picking a free element in a domain D of the real line. The aim of the players is to control the parity of the number of transpositions necessary to put the…
The game of peg solitaire on graphs was introduced by Beeler and Hoilman in 2011. In this game, pegs are initially placed on all but one vertex of a graph $G$. If $xyz$ forms a path in $G$ and there are pegs on vertices $x$ and $y$ but not…
A \textbf{single change covering design} is a $v$-set $X$ and an ordered list $\cL$ of $b$ blocks of size $k$ where every $t$-set must occur in at least one block. Each pair of consecutive blocks differs by exactly one element. A single…
This paper investigates the popular card game UNO from the viewpoint of algorithmic combinatorial game theory. We define simple and concise mathematical models for the game, including both cooperative and uncooperative versions, and analyze…
The Maker-Breaker resolving game is a game played on a graph $G$ by Resolver and Spoiler. The players taking turns alternately in which each player selects a not yet played vertex of $G$. The goal of Resolver is to select all the vertices…
The solution set of a system of polynomial equations typically contains ill-behaved, singular points. Resolution is a fundamental process in geometry in which we replace singular points with smooth points, while keeping the rest of the…
Bridge is a trick-taking card game requiring the ability to evaluate probabilities since it is a game of incomplete information where each player only sees its cards. In order to choose a strategy, a player needs to gather information about…
We present a new game, Dots & Polygons, played on a planar point set. Players take turns connecting two points, and when a player closes a (simple) polygon, the player scores its area. We show that deciding whether the game can be won from…
Consider gambler's ruin with three players, 1, 2, and 3, having initial capitals $A$, $B$, and $C$ units. At each round a pair of players is chosen (uniformly at random) and a fair coin flip is made resulting in the transfer of one unit…
In the natural generalization of tic-tac-toe to an $n \times n \times n$ board where $n \in \mathbb{N}$, it is known that the first player has a winning strategy if $n \leq 4$ and that either player can force a draw if $n \geq 8$. The…
Knockout tournaments, also known as single-elimination or cup tournaments, are a popular form of sports competitions. In the standard probabilistic setting, for each pairing of players, one of the players wins the game with a certain (a…
Many popular puzzle and matching games have been analyzed through the lens of computational complexity. Prominent examples include Sudoku, Candy Crush, and Flood-It. A common theme among these widely played games is that their generalized…
The Stackelberg Minimum Spanning Tree Game is a two-level combinatorial pricing problem played on a graph representing a network. Its edges are colored either red or blue, and the red edges have a given fixed cost, representing the…