Related papers: The problem of the pawns

The restricted $(m,n;N)$-online Ramsey game is a game played between two players, Builder and Painter. The game starts with $N$ isolated vertices. Each turn Builder picks an edge to build and Painter chooses whether that edge is red or…

We introduce a two-player game in which one and his/her opponent attempt to pack as many ``prisoners'' as possible on the squares of an n-by-n checkerboard; each prisoner has to be ``protected'' by at least as many guards as the number of…

Two standard algorithms for approximately solving two-player zero-sum concurrent reachability games are value iteration and strategy iteration. We prove upper and lower bounds of 2^(m^(Theta(N))) on the worst case number of iterations…

We introduce a two player game on an n x n chessboard where queens are placed by alternating turns on a chessboard square whose availability is determined by the number of queens already on the board which can attack that square modulo two.…

We show that there is an $m=2n+o(n)$, such that, in the Maker-Breaker game played on $\Z^d$ where Maker needs to put at least $m$ of his marks consecutively in one of $n$ given winning directions, Breaker can force a draw using a pairing…

We study the repeated balls-into-bins process introduced by Becchetti, Clementi, Natale, Pasquale and Posta (2019). This process starts with $m$ balls arbitrarily distributed across $n$ bins. At each round $t=1,2,\ldots$, one ball is…

We introduce and study pawn games, a class of two-player zero-sum turn-based graph games. A turn-based graph game proceeds by placing a token on an initial vertex, and whoever controls the vertex on which the token is located, chooses its…

Let s,t,m,n be positive integers such that sm=tn. Let M(m,s;n,t) be the number of m x n matrices over {0,1,2,...} with each row summing to s and each column summing to t. Equivalently, M(m,s;n,t) counts 2-way contingency tables of order m x…

Given positive integers m,n,s,t, let z(m,n,s,t) be the maximum number of ones in a (0,1) matrix of size m-by-n that does not contain an all ones submatrix of size s-by-t. We find a flexible upper bound on z(m,n,s,t) that implies the known…

Let P_{n,m} denote the graph taken uniformly at random from the set of all planar graphs on {1,2,..., n} with exactly m(n) edges. We use counting arguments to investigate the probability that P_{n,m} will contain given components and…

We consider an online allocation problem that involves a set $P$ of $n$ players and a set $E$ of $m$ indivisible entities over discrete time steps $1,2,\ldots,\tau$. At each time step $t \in [1,\tau]$, for every entity $e \in E$, there is a…

For positive integers $s$, $t$, $m$ and $n$, the Zarankiewicz number $Z_{s,t}(m,n)$ is defined to be the maximum number of edges in a bipartite graph with parts of sizes $m$ and $n$ that has no complete biparitite subgraph containing $s$…

This paper explores special arrangements of clues in $m \times n$ Numbrix puzzles. The maximum number of clues which fails to define an $m \times n$ puzzle is demonstrated for all $m$ and $n$. In addition, a small upper bound on the minimum…

$n$ people are seated randomly at a rectangular table with $\lfloor n/2\rfloor$ and $\lceil n/2\rceil$ seats along the two opposite sides for two dinners. What's the probability that neighbors at the first dinner are no more neighbors at…

Let T(m,n) denote the number of ways to tile an m-by-n rectangle with dominos. For any fixed m, the numbers T(m,n) satisfy a linear recurrence relation, and so may be extrapolated to negative values of n; these extrapolated values satisfy…

Domineering is a two-player game played on a checkerboard in which one player places dominoes vertically, while the other places them horizontally. In this paper, we find out the minimum number of moves for a game of Domineering to end on…

A fundamental component of networking infras- tructure is the policy, used in routing tables and firewalls. Accordingly, there has been extensive study of policies. However, the theory of such policies indicates that the size of the…

The $(m,n)$-online Ramsey game is a combinatorial game between two players, Builder and Painter. Starting from an infinite set of isolated vertices, Builder draws an edge on each turn and Painter immediately paints it red or blue. Builder's…

Let $M_n$ be the minimal position at generation $n$, of a real-valued branching random walk in the boundary case. As $n \to \infty$, $M_n- {3 \over 2} \log n$ is tight (see [1][9][2]). We establish here a law of iterated logarithm for the…

Mean-payoff games on timed automata are played on the infinite weighted graph of configurations of priced timed automata between two players, Player Min and Player Max, by moving a token along the states of the graph to form an infinite…