Solitaire Mancala Games and the Chinese Remainder Theorem

DOI10.4169/AMER.MATH.MONTHLY.120.08.706zbMATH Open1284.05169arXiv1112.3593OpenAlexW2963319719WikidataQ123653830 ScholiaQ123653830MaRDI QIDQ5404028FDOQ5404028

Authors: Laura Taalman, Anthony Tongen, Brant C. Jones 

Publication date: 20 March 2014

Published in: The American Mathematical Monthly (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Mancala is a generic name for a family of sowing games that are popular all over the world. There are many two-player mancala games in which a player may move again if their move ends in their own store. In this work, we study a simple solitaire mancala game called Tchoukaillon that facilitates the analysis of "sweep" moves, in which all of the stones on a portion of the board can be collected into the store. We include a self-contained account of prior research on Tchoukaillon, as well as a new description of all winning Tchoukaillon boards with a given length. We also prove an analogue of the Chinese Remainder Theorem for Tchoukaillon boards, and give an algorithm to reconstruct a complete winning Tchoukaillon board from partial information. Finally, we propose a graph-theoretic generalization of Tchoukaillon for further study.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3593

Recommendations

• The solitaire clobber game and correducibility
• The algorithmics of solitaire-like games
• Mathematical aspect of the combinatorial game ``Mahjong
• Solitaire Clobber on circulant graphs
• The solitaire clobber game and correducibility of graphs
• On a game of Sierpiński
• The Shortest Game of Chinese Checkers and Related Problems
• Peg solitaire game on Sierpinski graphs
• The Complexity of Solitaire

zbMATH Keywords

Tchoukaillon boards

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

2-person games (91A05) Games on graphs (graph-theoretic aspects) (05C57) Recreational mathematics (00A08) Calculation of integer sequences (11Y55)

Cited In (7)

• Cup stacking in graphs
• An optimal bound on the number of moves for open mancala
• Fagan's Construction, Strange Roots, and Tchoukaillon Solitaire
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Mu Torere: An Analysis of a Maori Game
• Periodical states and marching groups in a closed Owari
• The solitaire clobber game and correducibility

This page was built for publication: Solitaire Mancala Games and the Chinese Remainder Theorem

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q5404028)