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We analyze the Sprague-Grundy functions for a class of almost disjoint selective compound games played on Nim heaps. Surprisingly, we find that these functions behave chaotically for smaller Sprague-Grundy values of each component game yet…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-02-27 Calvin Beideman , Matthew Bowen , Necati Alp Muyesser

Nim is a well-known combinatorial game in which two players alternately remove stones from distinct piles. A player who removes the last stone wins under the normal play rule, while a player loses under the mis\`ere play rule. In this…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Hiromi Oginuma , Masato Shinoda

Wythoff's Nim is a variant of 2-pile Nim in which players are allowed to take any positive number of stones from pile 1, or any positive number of stones from pile 2, or the same positive number from both piles. The player who makes the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-08-08 Mirabel Hu , Daniel Sleator , William Tsin

Circular nim $CN(m, k)$ is a variant of nim, in which there are $m$ piles of tokens arranged in a circle and each player, in their turn, chooses at most $k$ consecutive piles in the circle and removes an arbitrary number of tokens from each…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-02-03 Koki Suetsugu

The classic game of Nim has been well-known for many years, inspiring numerous variations. One such variant is Delete Nim, where players take turns eliminating one pile of stones and splitting the remaining pile into two smaller piles. In…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-12-02 Masato Shinoda

We propose a variant of Nim, named StrNim. Whereas a position in Nim is a tuple of non-negative integers, that in StrNim is a string, a sequence of characters. In every turn, each player shrinks the string, by removing a substring repeating…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-03-25 Shota Mizuno , Ryo Yoshinaka , Ayumi Shinohara

In an amalgamation Nim, players are allowed to use a move from the traditional form of Nim or to amalgamate two piles when they are not empty. No formula that describes the set of P-positions of Amalgamation Nim is known. The author gives a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-11-25 Hikaru Manabe

We study two impartial games introduced by Anderson and Harary and further developed by Barnes. Both games are played by two players who alternately select previously unselected elements of a finite group. The first player who builds a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-02-12 Dana C. Ernst , Nandor Sieben

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

A circular Nim game is a two player impartial combinatorial game consisting of n stacks of tokens placed in a circle. A move consists of choosing k consecutive stacks, and taking at least one token from one or more of the k stacks. The last…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-11-02 Matthieu Dufour , Silvia Heubach

We study variations of classical combinatorial games on two finite heaps of tokens, a.k.a. \emph{subtraction games}. Given non-negative integers $p_1,q_1, p_2,q_2$, where $p_1q_2 > q_1p_2$, $p_1>0$ and $q_2>0$, two players alternate in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-02-09 Urban Larsson

We play a variation of Nim on stacks of tokens. Take your favorite increasing sequence of positive integers and color the tokens according to the following rule. Each token on a level that corresponds to a number in the sequence is colored…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2016-02-26 Michael Fisher , Urban Larsson

Circular Nim is a two-player impartial combinatorial game consisting of $n$ stacks of tokens placed in a circle. A move consists of choosing $k$ consecutive stacks and taking at least one token from one or more of the stacks. The last…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2024-04-11 Matthieu Dufour , Silvia Heubach

We study an impartial achievement game introduced by Anderson and Harary. The game is played by two players who alternately select previously unselected elements of a finite group. The game ends when the jointly selected elements generate…

Group Theory · Mathematics 2024-02-10 Bret J. Benesh , Dana C. Ernst , Nandor Sieben

The concept of nimbers--a.k.a. Grundy-values or nim-values--is fundamental to combinatorial game theory. Nimbers provide a complete characterization of strategic interactions among impartial games in their disjunctive sums as well as the…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2022-02-24 Kyle Burke , Matthew Ferland , Shanghua Teng

Node-Kayles is a well-known impartial combinatorial game played on graphs, where players alternately select a vertex and remove it along with its neighbors. By the Sprague-Grundy theorem, every position of an impartial game corresponds to a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-01-01 Nuttanon Songsuwan

We compare to different extensions of the ancient game of nim: Moore's nim$(n, \leq k)$ and exact nim$(n, = k)$. Given integers $n$ and $k$ such that $0 < k \leq n$, we consider $n$ piles of stones. Two players alternate turns. By one move…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2023-12-01 Vladimir Gurvich , Artem Parfenov , Michael Vyalyi

Berlekamp proposed a class of impartial combinatorial games based on the moves of chess pieces on rectangular boards. We generalize impartial chess games by playing them on Young diagrams and obtain results about winning and losing…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-01-27 Eric Gottlieb , Matjaž Krnc , Peter Muršič

We present take-away games whose Sprague-Grundy functions are given by the Nim sum of heap sizes in a mixed base $\beta$. Let $\Delta_\beta$ be the set of such games. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2019-01-09 Yuki Irie

We introduce Multiplicative Modular Nim (MuM), a variant of Nim in which the traditional nim-sum is replaced by heap-size multiplication modulo m. We establish a complete theory for this game, beginning with a direct, Bouton-style analysis…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2025-07-15 Satyam Tyagi