Simultaneous Combinatorial Game Theory

TL;DR

This paper extends combinatorial game theory to simultaneous move scenarios, analyzing game sums with various termination rules and winning conditions, establishing equivalence relations and preference checks.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for analyzing simultaneous move combinatorial games, defining new sum types and equivalence relations, advancing the theoretical understanding of such games.

Findings

Defined three types of game sums with simultaneous moves and termination rules.

Established that game equality induces an equivalence relation with a partial order.

Provided methods to check if one game can replace another in a sum based on player preferences.

Abstract

Combinatorial game theory (CGT), as introduced by Berlekamp, Conway and Guy, involves two players who move alternately in a perfect information, zero-sum game, and there are no chance devices. Also the games have the finite descent property (every game terminates in a finite number of moves). The two players are usually called Left and Right. The games often break up into components and the players must choose one of the components in which to play. One main aim of CGT is to analyze the components individually (rather than analyzing the sum as a whole) then use this information to analyze the sum. In this paper, the players move simultaneously in a combinatorial game. Three sums are considered which are defined by the termination rules: (i) one component does not have a simultaneous move; (ii) no component has a simultaneous move; (iii) one player has no move in any component. These are combined with a winning convention which is either: (i) based on which player has moves remaining; or (ii) the greatest score. In each combination, we show that equality of games induces an equivalence relation and the equivalence classes are partially ordered. Also, where possible, given games $A$ and $B$, we give checks to determine if Left prefers to replace $A$ by $B$ in a sum.