Related papers: New directions in enumerative chess problems
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…
On a convex polygonal chessboard, the number of combinatorial types of nonattacking configuration of three identical chess riders with $r$ moves, such as queens, bishops, or nightriders, equals $r(r^2+3r-1)/3$, as conjectured by Chaiken,…
In several standard models of dynamic programming (gambling houses, MDPs, POMDPs), we prove the existence of a very robust notion of value for the infinitely repeated problem, namely the pathwise uniform value. This solves two open…
We illustrate the application of the matrix-transfer method for a number of enumeration problems concerning the party game Silent Circles, Hamiltonian cycles in the antiprism graphs, and simple paths and cycles of a fixed length in…
A composition of a nonnegative integer (n) is a sequence of positive integers whose sum is (n). A composition is palindromic if it is unchanged when its terms are read in reverse order. We provide a generating function for the number of…
Given two finite ordered sets $A = \{a_1, \ldots, a_m\}$ and $B = \{b_1, \ldots, b_n\}$, introduce the set of $m n$ outcomes of the game $O = \{(a, b) \mid a \in A, b \in B\} = \{(a_i, b_j) \mid i \in I = \{1, \ldots, m\}, j \in J = \{1,…
A query game is a pair of a set $Q$ of queries and a set $\mathcal{F}$ of functions, or codewords $f:Q\rightarrow \mathbb{Z}.$ We think of this as a two-player game. One player, Codemaker, picks a hidden codeword $f\in \mathcal{F}$. The…
Trying to enumerate all of the walks in a 2D lattice is a fun combinatorial problem and there are numerous applications, from polymers to sports. Computers provide a wonderful tool for analyzing these walks; we provide a Maple package for…
A fork stack is a generalised stack which allows pushes and pops of several items at a time. We consider the problem of determining which input streams can be sorted using a single forkstack, or dually, which permutations of a fixed input…
The class of passable games was recently introduced by Selinger as a class of combinatorial games that are suitable for modelling monotone set coloring games such as Hex. In a monotone set coloring game, the players alternately color the…
We consider the $n\times n$ game of Phutball. It is shown that, given an arbitrary position of stones on the board, it is a PSPACE-hard problem to determine whether the specified player can win the game, regardless of the opponent's choices…
This paper provides a complexity analysis for the game of reconnaissance blind chess (RBC), a recently-introduced variant of chess where each player does not know the positions of the opponent's pieces a priori but may reveal a subset of…
In the "Game about Squares" the task is to push unit squares on an integer lattice onto corresponding dots. A square can only be moved into one given direction. When a square is pushed onto a lattice point with an arrow the direction of the…
Consider the following one player game. A deck containing $m$ copies of $n$ different card types is shuffled uniformly at random. Each round the player tries to guess the next card in the deck, and then the card is revealed and discarded.…
We consider turn-based game arenas for which we investigate uniformity properties of strategies. These properties involve bundles of plays, that arise from some semantical motive. Typically, we can represent constraints on allowed…
Partial methods play an important role in formal methods and beyond. Recently such methods were developed for parity games, where polynomial-time partial solvers decide the winners of a subset of nodes. We investigate here how effective…
While discounted payoff games and classic games that reduce to them, like parity and mean-payoff games, are symmetric, their solutions are not. We have taken a fresh view on the constraints that optimal solutions need to satisfy, and…
We analyze the computational complexity of the problem of deciding whether, for a given simple game, there exists the possibility of rearranging the participants in a set of $j$ given losing coalitions into a set of $j$ winning coalitions.…
(1) There is a finitely presented group with a word problem which is a uniformly effectively inseparable equivalence relation. (2) There is a finitely generated group of computable permutations with a word problem which is a universal…
An open problem posed by the first author is the complexity to decide whether a sequence of nonnegative integer numbers can be the final score of a football tournament. In this paper we propose polynomial time approximate and exponential…