Games of No Chance 4 (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications, Series Number 63)

Combinatorial Games are the strategy games that people like to play. They differ from economic games in that there are two players who play alternately with no hidden cards and no dice, for example Chess, Checkers and Go. They have a non-obvious mathematical structure that allows players to analyze these games in the abstract. This volume introduces a usable abstract theory for misère (last player to move loses) games, extends the theory for some classes of normal-play (last player to move wins) games and extends the analysis for some specific games. Games of Chance Vol 4 also contains the first comprehensive explorations of misère games. It includes a tutorial for the very successful approach to analyzing misère impartial games and the first attempt at using it for misère partisan games as well as an updated version of Unsolved Problems in Combinatorial Game Theory and the Combinatorial Games Bibliography. A Mathematical Explanation Of Misere Games, In Which Losing Is The Goal. Peeking At Partizan Misère Quotients / Meghan R. Allen -- A Survey About Solitaire Clobber / Laurent Beaudou, Eric Duchene And Sylvain Gravier -- Monte-carlo Approximation Of Temperature / Tristan Cazenave -- Retrograde Analysis Of Woodpush / Tristan Cazenave And Richard J. Nowakowski -- Narrow Misère Dots-and-boxes / Sebastien Collette, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine And Stefan Langerman -- Toppling Conjectures / Alex Fink, Richard J. Nowakowski, Aaron Siegel And David Wolfe -- Harnessing The Unwieldy Mex Function / Aviezri Fraenkel And Udi Peled -- The Rat Game And The Mouse Game / Aviezri Fraenkel -- A Ruler Regularity In Hexadecimal Games / J. P. Grossman And Richard J. Nowakowski -- A Handicap Strategy For Hex / Philip Henderson And Ryan Hayward -- Restrictions Of M-wythoff Nim And P-complementary Beatty Sequences / Urban Larsson -- Computer Analysis Of Sprouts With Nimbers / Julien Lemoine And Simon Viennot -- Navigating The Maze / Neil Mckay, Richard J. Nowakowski And Angela Siegel -- Evaluating Territories Of Go Positions With Capturing Races / Teigo Nakamura -- Artificial Intelligence For Bidding Hex / Sam Payne And Elina Robeva -- Nimbers In Partizan Games / Carlos Pereira Dos Santos And Jorge Nuno Silva -- Misère Canonical Forms Of Partizan Games / Aaron Siegel -- The Structure And Classification Of Misère Quotients / Aaron Siegel -- An Algorithm For Computing Indistinguishability Quotients In Misére Impartial Combinatorial Games / Mike Weimerskirch -- Unsolved Problems In Combinatorial Games / Richard J. Nowakowski -- Combinatorial Games : Selected Short Bibliography With A Succinct Gourmet Introduction / Aviezri Fraenkel And Richard J. Nowakowski. Edited By Richard J. Nowakowski, Dalhousie University. Includes Bibliographical References. This book includes a tutorial for analysing misère impartial games and how it can be used for misère partisan games. Hex and Go are featured, along with new games: Toppling Dominoes and Maze. Updated versions of Unsolved Problems in Combinatorial Game Theory and the Combinatorial Games Bibliography complete the volume.