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We study the class of word-building games, where two players pick letters from a finite alphabet to construct a finite or infinite word. The outcome is determined by whether the resulting word lies in a prescribed set (a win for player $A$)…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2015-01-19 Ville Salo , Ilkka Törmä

Subtraction games have a rich literature as normal-play combinatorial games (e.g., Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy, 1982). Recently, the theory has been extended to zero-sum scoring play (Cohensius et al. 2019). Here, we take the approach of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-22 Anjali Bhagat , Tanmay Kulkarni , Urban Larsson , Divya Murali

Let A be a finite subset of $\nat$. Then NIM(A;n) is the following 2-player game: initially there are $n$ stones on the board and the players alternate removing $a\in A$ stones. The first player who cannot move loses. This game has been…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-11-13 William Gasarch , John Purtilo , Douglas Ulrich

We consider the following combinatorial game: two players, Fast and Slow, claim $k$-element subsets of $[n]=\{1,2,...,n\}$ alternately, one at each turn, such that both players are allowed to pick sets that intersect all previously claimed…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-01-07 Balazs Patkos , Mate Vizer

A positional game is a game where two players sequentially label vertices of a hypergraph, consisting of a board and a collection of winning sets, with colors assigned to each player until all vertices of the board are claimed. The first…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-09-02 Pranav Avadhanam , Siddhartha G. Jena

We study zero-sum games, a variant of the classical combinatorial Subtraction games (studied for example in the monumental work "Winning Ways", by Berlekamp, Conway and Guy), called Cumulative Subtraction (CS). Two players alternate in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2020-02-14 Gal Cohensius , Urban Larsson , Reshef Meir , David Wahlstedt

A combinatorial game is a two-player game without hidden information or chance elements. The main object of combinatorial game theory is to obtain the outcome, which player has a winning strategy, of a given combinatorial game. Positions of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-11-27 Kengo Hashimoto

Subtraction games are played with one or more heaps of tokens, with players taking turns removing from a single heap a number of tokens belonging to a specified subtraction set; the last player to move wins. We describe how to compute the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2018-04-19 David Eppstein

We generalize the results and conjectures of Tam\'{a}s Lengyel, showing that the \textsc{nim}-values of a large class of two-dimensional subtraction-transfer games are periodic. These are impartial, normal-play games with two piles of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-05-25 Alon Danai , Paul Ellis , Thotsaporn Aek Thanatipanonda

In a guessing game, players guess the value of a random real number selected using some probability density function. The winner may be determined in various ways; for example, a winner can be a player whose guess is closest in magnitude to…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-07-11 Anthony Mendes , Kent E. Morrison

The multiplication game is a two-person game in which each player chooses a positive integer without knowledge of the other player's number. The two numbers are then multiplied together and the first digit of the product determines the…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2016-07-11 Kent E. Morrison

This paper provides a decomposition technique for the purpose of simplifying the solution of certain zero-sum differential games. The games considered terminate when the state reaches a target, which can be expressed as the union of a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2014-09-17 Adriano Festa , Richard Vinter

We introduce CUT, the class of 2-player partition games. These are NIM type games, played on a finite number of heaps of beans. The rules are given by a set of positive integers, which specifies the number of allowed splits a player can…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-17 Antoine Dailly , Eric Duchene , Urban Larsson , Gabrielle Paris

Subtraction games are a class of impartial combinatorial games whose positions correspond to nonnegative integers and whose moves correspond to subtracting one of a fixed set of numbers from the current position. Though they are easy to…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-07-11 Nathan Fox

Consider a two-player game repeated N times. Player 1 can choose between two styles (for interpretability, offensive and defensive), whereas Player 2 uses a single fixed style. Let X N\,:= \#wins -\#losses for Player 1 after N games, and…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Jonatha ANSELMI , Bruno Gaujal

The containment game is a full information game for two players, initialised with a set of occupied vertices in an infinite connected graph $G$. On the $t$-th turn, the first player, called Spreader, extends the occupied set to $g(t)$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-12-30 Ohad Noy Feldheim , Itamar Israeli

In the domination game studied here, Dominator and Staller alternately choose a vertex of a graph $G$ and take it into a set $D$. The number of vertices dominated by the set $D$ must increase in each single turn and the game ends when $D$…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2014-04-08 Csilla Bujtás

We study a version of the lights out game played on directed graphs. For a digraph $D$, we begin with a labeling of $V(D)$ with elements of $\mathbb{Z}_k$ for $k \ge 2$. When a vertex $v$ is toggled, the labels of $v$ and any vertex that…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-04 T. Elise Dettling , Darren B. Parker

We introduce a class of normal play partizan games, called Complementary Subtraction. Let $A$ denote your favorite set of positive integers. This is Left's subtraction set, whereas Right subtracts numbers not in $A$. The Golden Nugget…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-10-27 Urban Larsson , Neil A. McKay , Richard J. Nowakowski , Angela A. Siegel

Let A be a finite subset of the naturals and let n be a natural. Let NIM(A;n) be the two player game in which players alternate removing $a\in A$ stones from a pile with $n$ stones; the first player who cannot move loses. This game has been…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-11-05 Douglas Chen , William Gasarch