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Philip Ehrlich
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See the correction below.

The class of games does indeed constitute a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. This is already in Conway's book, but more explicitly stated and proved in Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013. On the other hand, the theorem that ensures that the cancellation law holds for multiplication is explicitly formulated and proved for surreal numbers (Theorem 8, pp.19-20 for Conway; Proposition 2.3, p.413 for Siegel). I suspect it fails for games.

Correction (1/13/22): (Siegel p. 413) establishes the following for the multiplication of long games. For all long games $x,y,z$: (a) $x0 \cong 0$, (b) $xy \cong yx$, (c) $x1 \cong x$, (d) $(xy)z=x(yz)$, (e) $(x+y)z=xz +yz$. Siegel's long games are Conway's games.

However, as David E Speyer observes in his comments, contrary to what I previously claimed this is not enough to show that the class of games constitutes a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. See Speyer's comments for details.

The class of games does indeed constitute a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. This is already in Conway's book, but more explicitly stated and proved in Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013. On the other hand, the theorem that ensures that the cancellation law holds for multiplication is explicitly formulated and proved for surreal numbers (Theorem 8, pp.19-20 for Conway; Proposition 2.3, p.413 for Siegel). I suspect it fails for games.

See the correction below.

The class of games does indeed constitute a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. This is already in Conway's book, but more explicitly stated and proved in Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013. On the other hand, the theorem that ensures that the cancellation law holds for multiplication is explicitly formulated and proved for surreal numbers (Theorem 8, pp.19-20 for Conway; Proposition 2.3, p.413 for Siegel). I suspect it fails for games.

Correction (1/13/22): (Siegel p. 413) establishes the following for the multiplication of long games. For all long games $x,y,z$: (a) $x0 \cong 0$, (b) $xy \cong yx$, (c) $x1 \cong x$, (d) $(xy)z=x(yz)$, (e) $(x+y)z=xz +yz$. Siegel's long games are Conway's games.

However, as David E Speyer observes in his comments, contrary to what I previously claimed this is not enough to show that the class of games constitutes a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. See Speyer's comments for details.

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Philip Ehrlich
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A negative answer to your questionThe class of games does indeed constitute a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. This is implicitalready in the resultsConway's book, but more explicitly stated and proved in Chapter VIII (Transfinite Games) of in Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013.

The multiplication familiar from On the theory of surreal numbers is only defined for long games, not games more generallyother hand, and even the class of long games (which containstheorem that ensures that the cancellation law holds for multiplication is explicitly formulated and proved for surreal numbers (Theorem 8, pp.19-20 for Conway; Proposition 2.3, p.413 for Siegel) is not a commutative ring. I suspect it fails for games.

A negative answer to your question is implicit in the results proved in Chapter VIII (Transfinite Games) of Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013.

The multiplication familiar from the theory of surreal numbers is only defined for long games, not games more generally, and even the class of long games (which contains the surreal numbers) is not a commutative ring.

The class of games does indeed constitute a commutative ring under Conway's definitions of sums and products. This is already in Conway's book, but more explicitly stated and proved in Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013. On the other hand, the theorem that ensures that the cancellation law holds for multiplication is explicitly formulated and proved for surreal numbers (Theorem 8, pp.19-20 for Conway; Proposition 2.3, p.413 for Siegel). I suspect it fails for games.

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Philip Ehrlich
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A negative answer to your question is implicit in the results proved in Chapter 10VIII (Transfinite Games) of Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013.

The multiplication familiar from the theory of surreal numbers is only defined for long games, not games more generally, and even the class of long games (which contains the surreal numbers) is not a commutative ring.

A negative answer to your question is implicit in the results proved in Chapter 10 (Transfinite Games) of Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013.

The multiplication familiar from the theory of surreal numbers is only defined for long games, not games more generally, and even the class of long games (which contains the surreal numbers) is not a commutative ring.

A negative answer to your question is implicit in the results proved in Chapter VIII (Transfinite Games) of Combinatorial Game Theory by Aaron N. Siegel, American Mathematical Society, 2013.

The multiplication familiar from the theory of surreal numbers is only defined for long games, not games more generally, and even the class of long games (which contains the surreal numbers) is not a commutative ring.

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Philip Ehrlich
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