English
Related papers

Related papers: Fractal Sequences and Restricted Nim

200 papers

In this paper, we analyze the mis\`ere versions of two impartial combinatorial games: k-Bounded Greedy Nim and Greedy Nim. We present a complete solution to both games by showing necessary and sufficient conditions for a position to be…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-06-06 Nanako Omiya , Ryo Yoshinaka , Ayumi Shinohara

Combinatorial Game Theory has also been called `additive game theory', whenever the analysis involves sums of independent game components. Such {\em disjunctive sums} invoke comparison between games, which allows abstract values to be…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-01-29 Urban Larsson , Richard J. Nowakowski , Carlos P. Santos

We study an impartial avoidance game introduced by Anderson and Harary. The game is played by two players who alternately select previously unselected elements of a finite group. The first player who cannot select an element without making…

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

Given $n$ piles of tokens and a positive integer $k \leq n$, the game Nim$^1_{n, =k}$ of exact slow $k$-Nim is played as follows. Two players move alternately. In each move, a player chooses exactly $k$ non-empty piles and removes one token…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-02-09 Nikolay Chikin , Vladimir Gurvich , Konstantin Knop , Mike Paterson , Michael Vyalyi

This work is concerned with the study of the Game of Graph Nim -- a class of two-player combinatorial games -- on graphs with $4$ edges. To each edge of such a graph is assigned a positive-integer-valued edge-weight, and during each round…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2025-09-08 Sayar Karmakar , Moumanti Podder , Souvik Roy , Soumyarup Sadhukhan

We introduce the notion of invariant vectors of a game and develop the Invariance Reduction Process, which first uses reduction of positions via invariance and then zero and merge reductions of games to arrive at smaller, solved sub-games…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2026-04-06 Balaji R. Kadam , Matthieu Dufour , Silvia Heubach

In this paper, we consider a modular extension to the game of Nim, which we call $m$-Modular Nim, and explore its optimal strategy. In $m$-Modular Nim, a player can either make a standard Nim move or remove a multiple of $m$ tokens in…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-08-31 Tanya Khovanova , Karan Sarkar

The ordinary game of Nim has a long history and is well-known in the area of combinatorial game theory. The solution to the ordinary game of Nim has been known for many years and lends itself to numerous other solutions to combinatorial…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2012-08-29 Lindsay Erickson , Warren Shreve

We consider mis\`{e}re Nim as a normal-play game obtained from Nim by removing the terminal position. While explicit formulas are known for the Sprague-Grundy functions of Nim and Welter's game, no explicit formula is known for that of…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2021-03-29 Yuki Irie

Given two finite sets of integers $S\subseteq\NNN\setminus\{0\}$ and $D\subseteq\NNN\setminus\{0,1\}$,the impartial combinatorial game $\IMARK(S,D)$ is played on a heap of tokens. From a heap of $n$ tokens, each player can moveeither to a…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2015-11-10 Eric Sopena

We introduce and analyse an extension of the disjunctive sum operation on some classical impartial games. Whereas the disjunctive sum describes positions formed from independent subpositions, our operation combines positions that are not…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-02-24 Graham Farr , Nhan Bao Ho

Fractional pebbling is a generalization of black-white pebbling introduced recently. In this reasearch paper we solve an open problem by proving a tight lower bound on the pebble weight required to fractionally pebble a balanced d-ary tree…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2013-05-29 Frank Vanderzwet

The Sprague-Grundy (SG) theory reduces the sum of impartial games to the classical game of $NIM$. We generalize the concept of sum and introduce $\cH$-combinations of impartial games for any hypergraph $\cH$. In particular, we introduce the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2017-01-12 Endre Boros , Vladimir Gurvich , Nhan Bao Ho , Kazuhisa Makino , Peter Mursic

In a recent arXiv-manuscript Fox studies infinite subtraction games with a finite (ternary) and aperiodic Sprague-Grundy function. Here we provide an elementary example of a game with the given properties, namely the game given by the…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2015-03-26 Urban Larsson

The game of Nim as played on graphs was introduced in Nim on Graphs I and extended in Nim on Graphs II by Masahiko Fukuyama. His papers detail the calculation of Grundy numbers for graphs under specific circumstances. We extend these…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-10-08 Lindsay Erickson

Candy Nim is a variant of Nim in which both players aim to take the last candy in a game of Nim, with the added simultaneous secondary goal of taking as many candies as possible. We give bounds on the number of candies the first and second…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2018-05-21 Nitya Mani , Rajiv Nelakanti , Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo , Alex Tholen

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

The 2-player impartial game of Wythoff Nim is played on two piles of tokens. A move consists in removing any number of tokens from precisely one of the piles or the same number of tokens from both piles. The winner is the player who removes…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-10-29 Urban Larsson

We study 2-player impartial games, so called \emph{invariant subtraction games}, of the type, given a set of allowed moves the players take turn in moving one single piece on a large Chess board towards the position $\boldsymbol 0$. Here,…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-09-23 Urban Larsson

In this paper we study a family of 2-pile Take Away games, that we denote by Generalized Diagonal Wythoff Nim (GDWN). The story begins with 2-pile Nim whose sets of options and $P$-positions are $\{\{0,t\}\mid t\in \N\}$ and $\{(t,t)\mid…

Combinatorics · Mathematics 2010-05-11 Urban Larsson