Cliques and constructors in "Hats'"game

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a generalized deterministic Hats game on graphs, providing winning strategies for specific graph classes, developing a constructor theory for graph construction, and introducing an equivalent game called "Check by rook."

Contribution

It introduces the theory of constructors for creating graphs where sages can guarantee winning strategies in the Hats game.

Findings

Winning strategies for complete graphs and cycles.

Construction methods for new winning graphs.

Analysis of the "Check by rook" game on 4-cycle.

Abstract

The following general variant of deterministic Hats game is analyzed. Several sages wearing colored hats occupy the vertices of a graph, the $k$-th sage can have hats of one of $h(k)$ colors. Each sage tries to guess the color of his own hat merely on the basis of observing the hats of his neighbors without exchanging any information. A predetermined guessing strategy is winning if it guarantees at least one correct individual guess for every assignment of colors. For complete graphs and for cycles we solve the problem of describing functions $h(k)$ for which the sages win. We demonstrate here winning strategies for the sages on complete graphs, and analyze the Hats game on almost complete graphs. We develop "theory of constructors", that is a collection of theorems demonstrating how one can construct new graphs for which the sages win. We define also new game "Check by rook" which is equivalent to Hats game on 4-cycle and give complete analysis of this game.