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     

Game chromatic index of k‐degenerate graphs

We consider the following edge coloring game on a graph G. Given t distinct colors, two players Alice and Bob, with Alice moving first, alternately select an uncolored edge e of G and assign it a color different from the colors of edges adjacent to e. Bob wins if, at any stage of the game, there is an uncolored edge adjacent to colored edges in all t colors; otherwise Alice wins. Note that when Alice wins, all edges of G are properly colored. The game chromatic index of a graph G is the minimum number of colors for which Alice has a winning strategy. In this paper, we study the edge coloring game on k‐degenerate graphs. We prove that the game chromatic index of a k‐degenerate graph is at most Δ + 3k − 1, where Δ is the maximum vertex degree of the graph. We also show that the game chromatic index of a forest of maximum degree 3 is at most 4 when the forest contains an odd number of edges. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 36: 144–155, 2001     

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.     

Game chromatic number of strong product graphs

The graph coloring game is a two-player game in which the two players properly color an uncolored vertex of G alternately. The first player wins the game if all vertices of G are colored, and the second wins otherwise. The game chromatic number of a graph G is the minimum integer k such that the first player has a winning strategy for the graph coloring game on G with k colors. There is a lot of literature on the game chromatic number of graph products, e.g., the Cartesian product and the lexicographic product. In this paper, we investigate the game chromatic number of the strong product of graphs, which is one of major graph products. In particular, we completely determine the game chromatic number of the strong product of a double star and a complete graph. Moreover, we estimate the game chromatic number of some King's graphs, which are the strong products of two paths.     

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     

The game chromatic number of random graphs

Given a graph G and an integer k, two players take turns coloring the vertices of G one by one using k colors so that neighboring vertices get different colors. The first player wins iff at the end of the game all the vertices of G are colored. The game chromatic number χ_g(G) is the minimum k for which the first player has a winning strategy. In this study, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of this parameter for a random graph G_n,p. We show that with high probability, the game chromatic number of G_n,p is at least twice its chromatic number but, up to a multiplicative constant, has the same order of magnitude. We also study the game chromatic number of random bipartite graphs. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2008     

Biased games on random boards

In this paper we analyze biased Maker‐Breaker games and Avoider‐Enforcer games, both played on the edge set of a random board . In Maker‐Breaker games there are two players, denoted by Maker and Breaker. In each round, Maker claims one previously unclaimed edge of G and Breaker responds by claiming b previously unclaimed edges. We consider the Hamiltonicity game, the perfect matching game and the k‐vertex‐connectivity game, where Maker's goal is to build a graph which possesses the relevant property. Avoider‐Enforcer games are the reverse analogue of Maker‐Breaker games with a slight modification, where the two players claim at least 1 and at least b previously unclaimed edges per move, respectively, and Avoider aims to avoid building a graph which possesses the relevant property. Maker‐Breaker games are known to be “bias‐monotone”, that is, if Maker wins the (1,b) game, he also wins the game. Therefore, it makes sense to define the critical bias of a game, b ^*, to be the “breaking point” of the game. That is, Maker wins the (1,b) game whenever and loses otherwise. An analogous definition of the critical bias exists for Avoider‐Enforcer games: here, the critical bias of a game b ^* is such that Avoider wins the (1,b) game for every , and loses otherwise. We prove that, for every is typically such that the critical bias for all the aforementioned Maker‐Breaker games is asymptotically . We also prove that in the case , the critical bias is . These results settle a conjecture of Stojakovi? and Szabó. For Avoider‐Enforcer games, we prove that for , the critical bias for all the aforementioned games is . © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 46,651–676, 2015     

Degree conditions for 2-factors

For any positive integer k, we investigate degree conditions implying that a graph G of order n contains a 2-factor with exactly k components (vertex disjoint cycles). In particular, we prove that for k ≤ (n/4), Ore's classical condition for a graph to be hamiltonian (k = 1) implies that the graph contains a 2-factor with exactly k components. We also obtain a sufficient degree condition for a graph to have k vertex disjoint cycles, at least s of which are 3-cycles and the remaining are 4-cycles for any s ≤ k. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Biased positional games and the phase transition

Let 𝔏(n, q) be the game in which two players, Maker and Breaker, alternately claim 1 and q edges of the complete graph K_n, respectively. Maker's goal is to maximize the number of vertices in the largest component of his graph; Breaker tries to make it as small as possible. Let L(n,q) denote the size of the largest component in Maker's graph when both players follow their optimal strategies. We study the behavior of L(n, q) for large n and q=q(n). In particular, we show that the value of L(n, q) abruptly changes for q∼n and discuss the differences between this phenomenon and a similar one, which occurs in the evolution of random graphs. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 18: 141–152, 2001     

Maker–Breaker domination game

We introduce the Maker–Breaker domination game, a two player game on a graph. At his turn, the first player, Dominator, selects a vertex in order to dominate the graph while the other player, Staller, forbids a vertex to Dominator in order to prevent him to reach his goal. Both players play alternately without missing their turn. This game is a particular instance of the so-called Maker–Breaker games, that is studied here in a combinatorial context. In this paper, we first prove that deciding the winner of the Maker–Breaker domination game is pspace-complete, even for bipartite graphs and split graphs. It is then showed that the problem is polynomial for cographs and trees. In particular, we define a strategy for Dominator that is derived from a variation of the dominating set problem, called the pairing dominating set problem.     

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     

Positional Games and the Second Moment Method

Dedicated to the memory of Paul Erdős We study the fair Maker–Breaker graph Ramsey game MB(n;q). The board is , the players alternately occupy one edge a move, and Maker wants a clique of his own. We show that Maker has a winning strategy in MB(n;q) if , which is exactly the clique number of the random graph on n vertices with edge-probability 1/2. Due to an old theorem of Erdős and Selfridge this is best possible apart from an additive constant. Received March 28, 2000     

A vertex cover with chorded 4-cycles

Let k be an integer with k ≥ 2 and G a graph with order n > 4k. We prove that if the minimum degree sum of any two nonadjacent vertices is at least n + k, then G contains a vertex cover with exactly k components such that k−1 of them are chorded 4-cycles. The degree condition is sharp in general.     

Quasi‐random hypergraphs revisited

The quasi‐random theory for graphs mainly focuses on a large equivalent class of graph properties each of which can be used as a certificate for randomness. For k ‐graphs (i.e., k ‐uniform hypergraphs), an analogous quasi‐random class contains various equivalent graph properties including the k ‐discrepancy property (bounding the number of edges in the generalized induced subgraph determined by any given (k ‐ 1) ‐graph on the same vertex set) as well as the k ‐deviation property (bounding the occurrences of “octahedron”, a generalization of 4 ‐cycle). In a 1990 paper (Chung, Random Struct Algorithms 1 (1990) 363‐382), a weaker notion of l ‐discrepancy properties for k ‐graphs was introduced for forming a nested chain of quasi‐random classes, but the proof for showing the equivalence of l ‐discrepancy and l ‐deviation, for 2 ≤ l < k, contains an error. An additional parameter is needed in the definition of discrepancy, because of the rich and complex structure in hypergraphs. In this note, we introduce the notion of (l,s) ‐discrepancy for k ‐graphs and prove that the equivalence of the (k,s) ‐discrepancy and the s ‐deviation for 1 ≤ s ≤ k. We remark that this refined notion of discrepancy seems to point to a lattice structure in relating various quasi‐random classes for hypergraphs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2011     

Critical behavior in inhomogeneous random graphs

We study the critical behavior of inhomogeneous random graphs in the so‐called rank‐1 case, where edges are present independently but with unequal edge occupation probabilities. The edge occupation probabilities are moderated by vertex weights, and are such that the degree of vertex i is close in distribution to a Poisson random variable with parameter w_i, where w_i denotes the weight of vertex i. We choose the weights such that the weight of a uniformly chosen vertex converges in distribution to a limiting random variable W. In this case, the proportion of vertices with degree k is close to the probability that a Poisson random variable with random parameter W takes the value k. We pay special attention to the power‐law case, i.e., the case where \begin{align*}{\mathbb{P}}(W\geq k)\end{align*} is proportional to k^‐(τ‐1) for some power‐law exponent τ > 3, a property which is then inherited by the asymptotic degree distribution. We show that the critical behavior depends sensitively on the properties of the asymptotic degree distribution moderated by the asymptotic weight distribution W. Indeed, when \begin{align*}{\mathbb{P}}(W > k) \leq ck^{-(\tau-1)}\end{align*} for all k ≥ 1 and some τ > 4 and c > 0, the largest critical connected component in a graph of size n is of order n^2/3, as it is for the critical Erd?s‐Rényi random graph. When, instead, \begin{align*}{\mathbb{P}}(W > k)=ck^{-(\tau-1)}(1+o(1))\end{align*} for k large and some τ∈(3,4) and c > 0, the largest critical connected component is of the much smaller order n^{(τ‐2)/(τ‐1)}. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 42, 480–508, 2013     

Game-perfect graphs

A graph coloring game introduced by Bodlaender (Int J Found Comput Sci 2:133–147, 1991) as coloring construction game is the following. Two players, Alice and Bob, alternately color vertices of a given graph G with a color from a given color set C, so that adjacent vertices receive distinct colors. Alice has the first move. The game ends if no move is possible any more. Alice wins if every vertex of G is colored at the end, otherwise Bob wins. We consider two variants of Bodlaender’s graph coloring game: one (A) in which Alice has the right to have the first move and to miss a turn, the other (B) in which Bob has these rights. These games define the A-game chromatic number resp. the B-game chromatic number of a graph. For such a variant g, a graph G is g-perfect if, for every induced subgraph H of G, the clique number of H equals the g-game chromatic number of H. We determine those graphs for which the game chromatic numbers are 2 and prove that the triangle-free B-perfect graphs are exactly the forests of stars, and the triangle-free A-perfect graphs are exactly the graphs each component of which is a complete bipartite graph or a complete bipartite graph minus one edge or a singleton. From these results we may easily derive the set of triangle-free game-perfect graphs with respect to Bodlaender’s original game. We also determine the B-perfect graphs with clique number 3. As a general result we prove that complements of bipartite graphs are A-perfect.      

Minimum path decompositions of oriented cubic graphs

Pullman [3] conjectured that if k is an odd positive integer, then every orientation of a regular graph of degree k has a minimum decomposition which contains no vertex which is both the initial vertex of some path in the decomposition and the terminal vertex of some other path in the decomposition. In this paper, the conjecture is established for cubic graphs, and its connection with Kelly's conjecture for tournaments is described.     

Powers of Hamiltonian cycles in randomly augmented graphs

We study the existence of powers of Hamiltonian cycles in graphs with large minimum degree to which some additional edges have been added in a random manner. It follows from the theorems of Dirac and of Komlós, Sarközy, and Szemerédi that for every k ≥ 1 and sufficiently large n already the minimum degree for an n‐vertex graph G alone suffices to ensure the existence of a kth power of a Hamiltonian cycle. Here we show that under essentially the same degree assumption the addition of just O(n) random edges ensures the presence of the (k + 1)st power of a Hamiltonian cycle with probability close to one.     

Analysis of parallel algorithms for finding a maximal independent set in a random hypergraph

It is well known [9] that finding a maximal independent set in a graph is in class NC and [10] that finding a maximal independent set in a hypergraph with fixed dimension is in RNC. It is not known whether this latter problem remains in NC when the dimension is part of the input. We will study the problem when the problem instances are randomly chosen. It was shown in [6] that the expected running time of a simple parallel algorithm for finding the lexicographically first maximal independent set (Ifmis) in a random simple graph is logarithmic in the input size. In this paper, we will prove a generalization of this result. We show that if a random k-uniform hypergraph has vertex set {1, 2, …, n} and its edges are chosen independently with probability p from the set of (ⁿ_k) possible edges, then our algorithm finds the Ifmis in O( ) expected time. The hidden constant is independent of k, p. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 9 , 359–377 (1996)     

On connectivity,conductance and bootstrap percolation for a random k‐out,age‐biased graph

A uniform attachment graph (with parameter k), denoted G_n,k in the paper, is a random graph on the vertex set [n], where each vertex v makes k selections from [v ? 1] uniformly and independently, and these selections determine the edge set. We study several aspects of this graph. Our motivation comes from two similarly constructed, well‐studied random graphs: k‐out graphs and preferential attachment graphs. In this paper, we find the asymptotic distribution of its minimum degree and connectivity, and study the expansion properties of G_n,k to show that the conductance of G_n,k is of order . We also study the bootstrap percolation on G_n,k, where r infected neighbors infect a vertex, and show that if the probability of initial infection of a vertex is negligible compared to then with high probability (whp) the disease will not spread to the whole vertex set, and if this probability exceeds by a sub‐logarithmical factor then the disease whp will spread to the whole vertex set.