Related papers: Tetris is Hard, Even to Approximate
Follow the regularized leader FTRL is the premier algorithm for online optimization. However, despite decades of research on its convergence in constrained optimization -- and potential games in particular -- its behavior remained hitherto…
In the standard setting of approachability there are two players and a target set. The players play repeatedly a known vector-valued game where the first player wants to have the average vector-valued payoff converge to the target set which…
The game of Othello is one of the world's most complex and popular games that has yet to be computationally solved. Othello has roughly ten octodecillion (10 to the 58th power) possible game records and ten octillion (10 to the 28th power)…
Edge-matching problems, also called edge matching puzzles, are abstractions of placement problems with neighborhood conditions. Pieces with colored edges have to be placed on a board such that adjacent edges have the same color. The problem…
We study two-player games with alternating moves played on infinite trees. Our main focus is on the case where the trees are full (regular) and the winning set is open (with respect to the product topology on the tree). Gale and Stewart…
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.…
Consider a very simple class of (finite) games: after an initial move by nature, each player makes one move. Moreover, the players have common interests: at each node, all the players get the same payoff. We show that the problem of…
Leadership games provide a powerful paradigm to model many real-world settings. Most literature focuses on games with a single follower who acts optimistically, breaking ties in favour of the leader. Unfortunately, for real-world…
The following optimal stopping problem is considered. The vertices of a graph $G$ are revealed one by one, in a random order, to a selector. He aims to stop this process at a time $t$ that maximizes the expected number of connected…
Quantitative games are two-player zero-sum games played on directed weighted graphs. Total-payoff games (that can be seen as a refinement of the well-studied mean-payoff games) are the variant where the payoff of a play is computed as the…
We introduce a problem set-up we call the Iterated Matching Pennies (IMP) game and show that it is a powerful framework for the study of three problems: adversarial learnability, conventional (i.e., non-adversarial) learnability and…
Decades of research have been invested in making computer programs for playing games such as Chess and Go. This paper focuses on a new game, Tetris Link, a board game that is still lacking any scientific analysis. Tetris Link has a large…
We introduce quantitative reductions, a novel technique for structuring the space of quantitative games and solving them that does not rely on a reduction to qualitative games. We show that such reductions exhibit the same desirable…
Whether a PTAS (polynomial-time approximation scheme) exists for game equilibria has been an open question, and its absence has indications and consequences in three fields: the practicality of methods in algorithmic game theory,…
We prove that a particular pushing-blocks puzzle is intractable in 3D. The puzzle, inspired by the game PushPush, consists of unit square blocks on an integer lattice. An agent may push blocks (but never pull them) in attempting to move…
Triangular peg solitaire is a well-known one-person game or puzzle. When one peg captures many pegs consecutively, this is called a sweep. We investigate whether the game can end in a dramatic fashion, with one peg sweeping all remaining…
We prove that the 2017 puzzle game ZHED is NP-complete, even with just 1 tiles. Such a puzzle is defined by a set of unit-square 1 tiles in a square grid, and a target square of the grid. A move consists of selecting an unselected 1 tile…
We study the computational complexity of the Buttons \& Scissors game and obtain sharp thresholds with respect to several parameters. Specifically we show that the game is NP-complete for $C = 2$ colors but polytime solvable for $C = 1$.…
Projection games constitute an important class of nonlocal games where, for any answer from the first player, there is a unique correct answer for the second player. This class of games captures nonlocal games arising from constraint…
(Note. The results of this manuscript has been merged and published with another paper of the same authors: A new approach to nonrepetitve sequences.) A repetition of size $h$ ($h\geqslant1$) in a given sequence is a subsequence of…