Bounded Degree, Triangle Avoidance Graph Games

We consider variants of the triangle-avoidance game first defined by Harary and rediscovered by Hajnal a few years later. A graph game begins with two players and an empty graph on n vertices. The two players take turns choosing edges within K _n , building up a simple graph. The edges must be chosen according to a set of restrictions ${\mathcal{R}}$ . The winner is the last player to choose an edge that does not violate any of the restrictions in ${\mathcal{R}}$ . For fixed n and ${\mathcal{R}}$ , one of the players has a winning strategy. For various games where ${\mathcal{R}}$ includes bounded degree and triangle avoidance, we determine the winner for all values of n.     

Asymptotic random graph intuition for the biased connectivity game

We study biased Maker/Breaker games on the edges of the complete graph, as introduced by Chvátal and Erd?s. We show that Maker, occupying one edge in each of his turns, can build a spanning tree, even if Breaker occupies b ≤ (1 ? o(1)) · edges in each turn. This improves a result of Beck, and is asymptotically best possible as witnessed by the Breaker‐strategy of Chvátal and Erd?s. We also give a strategy for Maker to occupy a graph with minimum degree c (where c = c(n) is a slowly growing function of n) while playing against a Breaker who takes b ≤ (1 ? o(1)) · edges in each turn. This result improves earlier bounds by Krivelevich and Szabó. Both of our results support the surprising random graph intuition: the threshold bias is asymptotically the same for the game played by two “clever” players and the game played by two “random” players. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2009     

On the threshold for the Maker‐Breaker H‐game

We study the Maker‐Breaker H‐game played on the edge set of the random graph . In this game two players, Maker and Breaker, alternately claim unclaimed edges of , until all edges are claimed. Maker wins if he claims all edges of a copy of a fixed graph H; Breaker wins otherwise. In this paper we show that, with the exception of trees and triangles, the threshold for an H‐game is given by the threshold of the corresponding Ramsey property of with respect to the graph H. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 49, 558–578, 2016     

A threshold for the Maker‐Breaker clique game

We study the Maker‐Breaker k‐clique game played on the edge set of the random graph G(n, p). In this game, two players, Maker and Breaker, alternately claim unclaimed edges of G(n, p), until all the edges are claimed. Maker wins if he claims all the edges of a k‐clique; Breaker wins otherwise. We determine that the threshold for the graph property that Maker can win this game is at , for all k > 3, thus proving a conjecture from Ref. [Stojakovi? and Szabó, Random Struct Algor 26 (2005), 204–223]. More precisely, we conclude that there exist constants such that when the game is Maker's win a.a.s., and when it is Breaker's win a.a.s. For the triangle game, when k = 3, we give a more precise result, describing the hitting time of Maker's win in the random graph process. We show that, with high probability, Maker can win the triangle game exactly at the time when a copy of K₅ with one edge removed appears in the random graph process. As a consequence, we are able to give an expression for the limiting probability of Maker's win in the triangle game played on the edge set of G(n, p). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 45, 318–341, 2014     

Embracing the giant component

Consider a game in which edges of a graph are provided a pair at a time, and the player selects one edge from each pair, attempting to construct a graph with a component as large as possible. This game is in the spirit of recent papers on avoiding a giant component, but here we embrace it. We analyze this game in the offline and online setting, for arbitrary and random instances, which provides for interesting comparisons. For arbitrary instances, we find that the competitive ratio (the best possible solution value divided by best possible online solution value) is large. For “sparse” random instances the competitive ratio is also large, with high probability (whp); If the instance has ¼(1 + ε)n random edge pairs, with 0 < ε ≤ 0.003, then any online algorithm generates a component of size O((log n)^3/2) whp , while the optimal offline solution contains a component of size Ω(n) whp . For “dense” random instances, the average‐case competitive ratio is much smaller. If the instance has ½(1 ? ε)n random edge pairs, with 0 < ε ≤ 0.015, we give an online algorithm which finds a component of size Ω(n) whp . © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2005     

Partitions and orientations of the Rado graph

We classify the countably infinite oriented graphs which, for every partition of their vertex set into two parts, induce an isomorphic copy of themselves on at least one of the parts. These graphs are the edgeless graph, the random tournament, the transitive tournaments of order type  , and two orientations of the Rado graph: the random oriented graph, and a newly found random acyclic oriented graph.

     

Efficient Winning Strategies in Random‐Turn Maker–Breaker Games

We consider random‐turn positional games, introduced by Peres, Schramm, Sheffield, and Wilson in 2007. A p‐random‐turn positional game is a two‐player game, played the same as an ordinary positional game, except that instead of alternating turns, a coin is being tossed before each turn to decide the identity of the next player to move (the probability of Player I to move is p ). We analyze the random‐turn version of several classical Maker–Breaker games such as the game Box (introduced by Chvátal and Erd?s in 1987), the Hamilton cycle game and the k‐vertex‐connectivity game (both played on the edge set of ). For each of these games we provide each of the players with a (randomized) efficient strategy that typically ensures his win in the asymptotic order of the minimum value of p for which he typically wins the game, assuming optimal strategies of both players.     

On the rate of taxation in a cooperative bin packing game

We investigate a cooperative game with two types of players envolved: Every player of the first type owns a unit size bin, and every player of the second type owns an item of size at most one. The value of a coalition of players is defined to be the maximum overall size of packed items over all packings of the items owned by the coalition into the bins owned by the coalition.We prove that for=1/3 this cooperative bin packing game is-balanced in the taxation model of Faigle and Kern (1993).This research was supported by the Christian Doppler Laboratorium für Diskrete Optimierung.     

The size of the giant high‐order component in random hypergraphs

The phase transition in the size of the giant component in random graphs is one of the most well‐studied phenomena in random graph theory. For hypergraphs, there are many possible generalizations of the notion of a connected component. We consider the following: two j‐sets (sets of j vertices) are j‐connected if there is a walk of edges between them such that two consecutive edges intersect in at least j vertices. A hypergraph is j‐connected if all j‐sets are pairwise j‐connected. In this paper, we determine the asymptotic size of the unique giant j‐connected component in random k‐uniform hypergraphs for any and .     

Hitting time results for Maker‐Breaker games

We study Maker‐Breaker games played on the edge set of a random graph. Specifically, we analyze the moment a typical random graph process first becomes a Maker's win in a game in which Maker's goal is to build a graph which admits some monotone increasing property \begin{align*}\mathcal{P}\end{align*}. We focus on three natural target properties for Maker's graph, namely being k ‐vertex‐connected, admitting a perfect matching, and being Hamiltonian. We prove the following optimal hitting time results: with high probability Maker wins the k ‐vertex connectivity game exactly at the time the random graph process first reaches minimum degree 2k; with high probability Maker wins the perfect matching game exactly at the time the random graph process first reaches minimum degree 2; with high probability Maker wins the Hamiltonicity game exactly at the time the random graph process first reaches minimum degree 4. The latter two statements settle conjectures of Stojakovi? and Szabó. We also prove generalizations of the latter two results; these generalizations partially strengthen some known results in the theory of random graphs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

The multi-player nonzero-sum Dynkin game in discrete time

We study the infinite horizon discrete time N-player nonzero-sum Dynkin game ( $N \ge 2$ ) with stopping times as strategies (or pure strategies). The payoff depends on the set of players that stop at the termination stage (where the termination stage is the minimal stage in which at least one player stops). We prove existence of a Nash equilibrium point for the game provided that, for each player $\pi _i$ and each nonempty subset $S$ of players that does not contain $\pi _i$ , the payoff if $S$ stops at a given time is at least the payoff if $S$ and $\pi _i$ stop at that time.     

A differential game of incomplete information

In this paper, we study a differential game of incomplete information. In such a game, the cost function depends on parameter . At the start of the game, only one of the players knows the value of this parameter, while the other player has only a (subjective) probability distribution for the parameter. We obtain explicit expressions for both the value of the game and the two players' optimal strategies.     

Analyzing n-player impartial games

Combinatorial game theory is the study of two player perfect information games. While work has been done in the past on expanding this field to include n-player games we present a unique method which guarantees a single winner. Specifically our goal is to derive a function which, given an n-player game, is able to determine the winning player (assuming all n players play optimally). Once this is accomplished we use this function in analyzing a certain family of three player subtraction games along with a complete analysis of three player, three row Chomp. Furthermore we make use of our new function in producing alternative proofs to various well known two player Chomp games. Finally the paper presents a possible method of analyzing a two player game where one of the players plays a completely random game. As it turns out this slight twist to the rules of combinatorial game theory produces rather interesting results and is certainly worth the time to study further.     

The diameter game

A large class of Positional Games are defined on the complete graph on n vertices. The players, Maker and Breaker, take the edges of the graph in turns, and Maker wins iff his subgraph has a given — usually monotone — property. Here we introduce the d‐diameter game, which means that Maker wins iff the diameter of his subgraph is at most d. We investigate the biased version of the game; i.e., when the players may take more than one, and not necessarily the same number of edges, in a turn. Our main result is that we proved that the 2‐diameter game has the following surprising property: Breaker wins the game in which each player chooses one edge per turn, but Maker wins as long as he is permitted to choose 2 edges in each turn whereas Breaker can choose as many as (1/9)n^1/8/(lnn)^3/8. In addition, we investigate d‐diameter games for d ≥ 3. The diameter games are strongly related to the degree games. Thus, we also provide a generalization of the fair degree game for the biased case. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2009     

Online balanced graph avoidance games

We introduce and study online balanced coloring games on the random graph process. The game is played by a player we call Painter. Edges of the complete graph with n vertices are introduced two at a time, in a random order. For each pair of edges, Painter immediately and irrevocably chooses one of the two possibilities to color one of them red and the other one blue. His goal is to avoid creating a monochromatic copy of a small fixed graph F for as long as possible.We show that the duration of the game is determined by a threshold function m_H=m_H(n) for certain graph-theoretic structures, e.g., cycles. That is, for every graph H in this family, Painter will asymptotically almost surely (a.a.s.) lose the game after m=ω(m_H) edge pairs in the process. On the other hand, there exists an essentially optimal strategy: if the game lasts for m=o(m_H) moves, Painter can a.a.s. successfully avoid monochromatic copies of H. Our attempt is to determine the threshold function for several classes of graphs.     

Equilibrium existence and topology in some repeated games with incomplete information

This article proves the existence of an equilibrium in any infinitely repeated, un-discounted two-person game of incomplete information on one side where the uninformed player must base his behavior strategy on state-dependent information generated stochastically by the moves of the players and the informed player is capable of sending nonrevealing signals.

This extends our earlier result stating that an equilibrium exists if additionally the information is standard. The proof depends on applying new topological properties of set-valued mappings. Given a set-valued mapping on a compact convex set , we give further conditions which imply that every point belongs to the convex hull of a finite subset of the domain of satisfying .

     

EF-equivalent not isomorphic pair of models

We construct non-isomorphic models , e.g. of cardinality , such that in the Ehrenfeucht-Fraissé game of any length the isomorphism player wins.

     

The non-solvability by radicals of generic 3-connected planar Laman graphs

We show that planar embeddable -connected Laman graphs are generically non-soluble. A Laman graph represents a configuration of points on the Euclidean plane with just enough distance specifications between them to ensure rigidity. Formally, a Laman graph is a maximally independent graph, that is, one that satisfies the vertex-edge count together with a corresponding inequality for each subgraph. The following main theorem of the paper resolves a conjecture of Owen (1991) in the planar case. Let be a maximally independent -connected planar graph, with more than 3 vertices, together with a realisable assignment of generic distances for the edges which includes a normalised unit length (base) edge. Then, for any solution configuration for these distances on a plane, with the base edge vertices placed at rational points, not all coordinates of the vertices lie in a radical extension of the distance field.