Skip to main content
Search type Search syntax
Tags [tag]
Exact "words here"
Author user:1234
user:me (yours)
Score score:3 (3+)
score:0 (none)
Answers answers:3 (3+)
answers:0 (none)
isaccepted:yes
hasaccepted:no
inquestion:1234
Views views:250
Code code:"if (foo != bar)"
Sections title:apples
body:"apples oranges"
URL url:"*.example.com"
Saves in:saves
Status closed:yes
duplicate:no
migrated:no
wiki:no
Types is:question
is:answer
Exclude -[tag]
-apples
For more details on advanced search visit our help page
Results tagged with
Search options not deleted user 1946
5 votes

Nim game for odd number of stones

I am skeptical that there will be such an argument. The reason is that the winning Nim strategy is essentially unique. Namely, a Nim position is balanced if the binary digits of the heap sizes have al …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
6 votes

Guess a number with at most one wrong answer

The other answers are truly excellent and have settled the intended question. For a bit of fun, however, allow me to mention the following paradoxical solution. Namely, with a certain precise and rea …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
6 votes

$n$-in-a-row game on $\mathbb{R}^2$

I'll start things off by observing that this is what is known as an open game, since if player 1 wins, then the winning condition is satisfied after finitely many moves. It follows by the Gale-Stewart …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
14 votes
Accepted

Determined, finite games

There are numerous proofs of what I call the fundamental theorem of finite games. Theorem. (Fundamental theorem of finite games) In any finite two-player game of perfect information, one of the pla …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
4 votes

When is a game tree the game tree of a board game?

Here is one possible answer. An essential feature of any board game, in the way I am thinking about it, is that there are only finitely many game states that are realizable on the board. This fact, co …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
9 votes

JUSTICE & INJUSTICE — two 2-player finite games

Here is a complete winning strategy for the Justice game. One wins the Justice game simply by following the usual Nim strategy, with all the same winning positions and moves (except if the position is …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
7 votes

Negative of combinatorial game

No, the negative a game is simply the game in which the player's roles are swapped, hereditarily. You can see this in the definition you provided $$-G=\{ -G^R\mid -G^L\}$$ since the left options in $- …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
11 votes
Accepted

Explicit examples of undetermined games

Here is an amusing concrete non-determined game, under the assumption that the dependent choice principle fails. Assume DC fails. This means that there is a set $X$ and a binary relation $R$ on $X$, …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Non-measurable sets and Determinacy...

(My argument is somewhat easier if you consider games where the players play $0$s and $1$s, so that the payoff set is in Cantor space $2^\omega$, and we use the usual coin-flipping probability measure …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
27 votes
Accepted

I know that you know...

My wife and I have a standing agreement where I pick up our son Horatio from school and she picks up our daughter Hypatia. One day, because I knew I would be near Hypatia's school, it was convenient …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
7 votes

Who wins infinite Hex?

This doesn't answer the question that was asked, but rather an alternative kind of infinite Hex, played on the infinite hexagonal lattice board as shown below. I am posting it because people intereste …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
19 votes
5 answers
1k views

When is a game tree the game tree of a board game?

This question arises from what I find interesting in the recently asked question What is a chess piece mathematically? My answer to that question was that mathematically, game pieces are in general e …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
16 votes

Alice and Bob playing on a circle

For even $n$, I claim that nobody has a winning strategy, and therefore both players have drawing strategies. To see this, observe first that by the fundamental theorem of finite games, we know that …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
3 votes

Is perfect play possible in continuous rock-paper-scissors? game "step size" vs. "acceleration"

I don't know the answer to your question, but perhaps we might gain insight from the following Interview with Jason Simmons, a professional rock/paper/scissors player, which appeared a few years ago o …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

Is following function a metric on the set of isomorphism classes of graphs with countably ma...

To prove that this is a metric, consider the following theorem. Theorem. If the second player can survive for $n$ steps in the $(\Gamma_1,\Gamma_2)$ game, and for $m$ steps in the $(\Gamma_2,\Gamma_3 …
Joel David Hamkins's user avatar

15 30 50 per page