English

Mind the gap: A real-valued distance on combinatorial games

Combinatorics 2026-01-16 v1

Abstract

We define a real-valued distance metric wdwd on the space C\mathcal{C} of short combinatorial games in canonical form. We demonstrate the existence of Cauchy sequences informed by sidling sequences, find limit points, and investigate the closure C\overline{\mathcal{C}}, which is shown to partition the set of loopy games in a non-trivial way. Stoppers, enders, and non-stopper-sided loopy games are explored, as well as the topological properties of (C,wd)(\mathcal{C},wd).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.10574,
  title  = {Mind the gap: A real-valued distance on combinatorial games},
  author = {Kyle Burke and Michael Fisher and Craig Tennenhouse},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.10574},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

17 pages, 10 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:06:13.495Z