Related papers: The mixing time of the Thorp shuffle
If $G$ is a bipartite graph, Hall's theorem \cite{H35} gives a condition for the existence of a matching of $G$ covering one side of the bipartition. This theorem admits a well-known algorithmic proof involving the repeated search of…
We introduce a variant of Wythoff's Game that we call $m$-Modular Wythoff's Game. In the original Wythoff's Game, players can take a positive number of tokens from one pile, or they can take a positive number of tokens from both piles if…
Consider the following game: You are given two indistinguishable envelopes, each containing money. One contains twice as much as the other. You may pick one envelope and keep the money it contains. Having chosen an envelope, you are given…
A placement of chess pieces on a chessboard is called dominating, if each free square of the chessboard is under attack by at least one piece. In this contribution we compute the number of dominating arrangements of $k$ rooks on an $n\times…
The game of Hex has two players who take turns placing stones of their respective colors on the hexagons of a rhombus-shaped hexagonal grid. Black wins by completing a crossing between two opposite edges, while White wins by completing a…
Consider a uniformly random deck consisting of cards labelled by numbers from $1$ through $n$, possibly with repeats. A guesser guesses the top card, after which it is revealed and removed and the game continues. What is the expected number…
Consider the random walk on the $n \times n$ upper triangular matrices with ones on the diagonal and elements over $\mathbb{F}_p$ where we pick a row at random and either add it or subtract it from the row directly above it. The main result…
We consider the game of Cops and Robber played on the Cartesian product of two trees. Assuming the players play perfectly, it is shown that if there are two cops in the game, then the length of the game (known as the 2-capture time of the…
Bridge is a trick-taking card game requiring the ability to evaluate probabilities since it is a game of incomplete information where each player only sees its cards. In order to choose a strategy, a player needs to gather information about…
Monotonic surfaces spanning finite regions of $Z^d$ arise in many contexts, including DNA-based self-assembly, card-shuffling and lozenge tilings. One method that has been used to uniformly generate these surfaces is a Markov chain that…
We prove a cutoff for the random walk on random $n$-lifts of finite weighted graphs, even when the random walk on the base graph $\mathcal{G}$ of the lift is not reversible. The mixing time is w.h.p. $t_{mix}=h^{-1}\log n$, where $h$ is a…
Penney's game is a two player zero-sum game in which each player chooses a three-flip pattern of heads and tails and the winner is the player whose pattern occurs first in repeated tosses of a fair coin. Because the players choose…
The flip graph algorithm is a method for discovering new matrix multiplication schemes by following random walks on a graph. We introduce a version of the flip graph algorithm for matrix multiplication schemes that admit certain symmetries.…
We study mixing times for the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) on a segment of size $N$ with open boundaries. We focus on the maximal current phase, and prove that the mixing time is of order $N^{3/2}$, up to logarithmic…
We study an example of a {\em hit-and-run} random walk on the symmetric group $\mathbf S_n$. Our starting point is the well understood {\em top-to-random} shuffle. In the hit-and-run version, at each {\em single step}, after picking the…
We consider the complexity of problems related to the combinatorial game Free-Flood-It, in which players aim to make a coloured graph monochromatic with the minimum possible number of flooding operations. Although computing the minimum…
We introduce a new family of one-player games, involving the movement of coins from one configuration to another. Moves are restricted so that a coin can be placed only in a position that is adjacent to at least two other coins. The goal of…
The "carries" when n random numbers are added base b form a Markov chain with an "amazing" transition matrix determined by Holte. This same Markov chain occurs in following the number of descents or rising sequences when n cards are…
We consider multiple polylogarithms in a single variable at non-positive integers. Defining a connected graded Hopf algebra, we apply Connes' and Kreimer's algebraic Birkhoff decomposition to renormalize multiple polylogarithms at…
In the game of Scrabble, letter tiles are drawn uniformly at random from a bag. The variability of possible draws as the game progresses is a source of variation that makes it more likely for an inferior player to win a head-to-head match…