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2015 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Game Values and Computational Complexity: An Analysis via Black-White Combinatorial Games

verfasst von : Stephen A. Fenner, Daniel Grier, Jochen Messner, Luke Schaeffer, Thomas Thierauf

Erschienen in: Algorithms and Computation

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

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Abstract

A black-white combinatorial game is a two-person game in which the pieces are colored either black or white. The players alternate moving or taking elements of a specific color designated to them before the game begins. A player loses the game if there is no legal move available for his color on his turn.
We first show that some black-white versions of combinatorial games can only assume combinatorial game values that are numbers, which indicates that the game has many nice properties making it easier to solve. Indeed, numeric games have only previously been shown to be hard for \(\mathsf{NP}\). We exhibit a language of natural numeric games (specifically, black-white poset games) that is \(\mathsf{PSPACE}\)-complete, closing the gap in complexity for the first time between these numeric games and the large collection of combinatorial games that are known to be \(\mathsf{PSPACE}\)-complete.
In this vein, we also show that the game of Col played on general graphs is also \(\mathsf{PSPACE}\)-complete despite the fact that it can only assume two very simple game values. This is interesting because its natural black-white variant is numeric but only complete for \(\mathsf{P}^{\mathsf{NP}[\log ]}\). Finally, we show that the problem of determining the winner of black-white Graph Nim is in \(\mathsf{P}\) using a flow-based technique.

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Fußnoten
1
Informally, the value of a game indicates which player will win the game and by how much. A more precise definition, along with much additional background information and full proofs, is given in the full paper [8].
 
2
These are sometimes called red-blue games in the literature.
 
3
To clear possible confusion, Col was mistakenly referenced as being proven \(\mathsf{PSPACE}\)-complete in [4].
 
4
Other variants are possible; see Fukuyama [9] for example, where sticks are placed on edges.
 
5
Bipartite Geography is one-sided as described above, hence vacuously numeric.
 
6
If the number of sticks is polynomially bounded, then undirected black-white NimG trivially reduces to undirected Geography and so is clearly in \(\mathsf{P}\).
 
Literatur
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4.
Zurück zum Zitat Cincotti, A.: Three-player Col played on trees is NP-complete. In: International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2009, pp. 445–447 (2009). Newswood Limited Cincotti, A.: Three-player Col played on trees is NP-complete. In: International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists 2009, pp. 445–447 (2009). Newswood Limited
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Zurück zum Zitat Conway, J.H.: On Numbers and Games. Academic Press, New York (1976)MATH Conway, J.H.: On Numbers and Games. Academic Press, New York (1976)MATH
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Zurück zum Zitat Demaine, E.D., Hearn, R.A.: Constraint logic: a uniform framework for modeling computation as games. In: 23rd Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, pp. 149–162. IEEE (2008) Demaine, E.D., Hearn, R.A.: Constraint logic: a uniform framework for modeling computation as games. In: 23rd Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, pp. 149–162. IEEE (2008)
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Zurück zum Zitat Fenner, S.A., Grier, D., Meßner, J., Schaeffer, L., Thierauf, T.: Game values and computational complexity: an analysis via black-white combinatorial games. Technical Report TR15-021, Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, February 2015 Fenner, S.A., Grier, D., Meßner, J., Schaeffer, L., Thierauf, T.: Game values and computational complexity: an analysis via black-white combinatorial games. Technical Report TR15-021, Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, February 2015
10.
Zurück zum Zitat Grier, D.: Deciding the winner of an arbitrary finite poset game is PSPACE-complete. In: Fomin, F.V., Freivalds, R.U., Kwiatkowska, M., Peleg, D. (eds.) ICALP 2013, Part I. LNCS, vol. 7965, pp. 497–503. Springer, Heidelberg (2013) CrossRef Grier, D.: Deciding the winner of an arbitrary finite poset game is PSPACE-complete. In: Fomin, F.V., Freivalds, R.U., Kwiatkowska, M., Peleg, D. (eds.) ICALP 2013, Part I. LNCS, vol. 7965, pp. 497–503. Springer, Heidelberg (2013) CrossRef
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Metadaten
Titel
Game Values and Computational Complexity: An Analysis via Black-White Combinatorial Games
verfasst von
Stephen A. Fenner
Daniel Grier
Jochen Messner
Luke Schaeffer
Thomas Thierauf
Copyright-Jahr
2015
Verlag
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48971-0_58

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