English

Losing at Checkers is Hard

Computational Complexity 2018-06-15 v1

Abstract

We prove computational intractability of variants of checkers: (1) deciding whether there is a move that forces the other player to win in one move is NP-complete; (2) checkers where players must always be able to jump on their turn is PSPACE-complete; and (3) cooperative versions of (1) and (2) are NP-complete. We also give cooperative checkers puzzles whose solutions are the letters of the alphabet.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1806.05657,
  title  = {Losing at Checkers is Hard},
  author = {Jeffrey Bosboom and Spencer Congero and Erik D. Demaine and Martin L. Demaine and Jayson Lynch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.05657},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

13 pages, 8 figures. To appear in The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects, Volume 3

R2 v1 2026-06-23T02:30:27.362Z