Impartial games with entailing moves

zbMATH Open1490.91041arXiv2101.11699MaRDI QIDQ3390732FDOQ3390732

Authors: Urban Larsson, Carlos Santos, R. J. Nowakowski 

Publication date: 25 March 2022

Abstract: 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 assigned to them. However, there are rulesets with {em entailing moves} that break the alternating play axiom and/or restrict the other player's options within the disjunctive sum components. These situations are exemplified in the literature by a ruleset such as {sc nimstring}, a normal play variation of the classical children's game {sc dots & boxes}, and {sc top~entails}, an elegant ruleset introduced in the classical work Winning Ways, by Berlekamp Conway and Guy. Such rulesets fall outside the scope of the established normal play theory. Here, we axiomatize normal play via two new terminating games, $infty$ (Left wins) and $overlineinfty$ (Right wins), and a more general theory is achieved. We define {em affine impartial}, which extends classical impartial games, and we analyze their algebra by extending the established Sprague-Grundy theory, with an accompanying minimum excluded rule. Solutions of {sc nimstring} and {sc top~entails} are given to illustrate the theory.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.11699

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Combinatorial games (91A46)

Cites Work

• Combinatorial game theory
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Cited In (8)

• Atomic weights and the combinatorial game of \textsc{bipass}
• On tame, pet, domestic, and miserable impartial games
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• Ordinal sums of impartial games
• Impartial games with entailing moves
• Combinatorial game theory
• A complete solution for a nontrivial ruleset with entailing moves
• Some notes on disjunctive short sum: \textsc{polychromatic nim}

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