Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, vol.1, vol.2, vol.3, vol.4. (2004)

This book was originally published in 2 volumes in 1982. A second edition was released in 4 volumes starting in 2001.

These four volumes (Spades, Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds) explore the foundations and current research in the field of recreational games. It is the definitive work on the subject of mathematical games.

In Volume 1, the authors do the spade-word, presenting theories and techniques to "dissect" games of varied structures and formats in order to develop winning strategies. Their focus is on "adding games," including Nim, Hackenbush, and Kayles. The inclusion of many examples helps the reader to put the mathematical analysis to immediate use.

In Volume 2, the authors have a Change of Heart and bend the rules of Volume 1 to apply them to games that may continue indefinitely or in which "winning" is not necessarily making the last move, such as Cut-cake and Loopy Hackenbush.

In Volume 3, the authors examine Games played in Clubs, giving case studies for coin and paper-and-pencil games, such as Dots and Boxes and Nimstring.

In Volume 4, the authors present a Diamond of a find, covering one-player games such as Solitaire and ponder subjects and questions such as, Purging Pegs Properly, Pursuing Puzzles Purposefully, and What is Life?

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, vol.1

Preface to the Second Edition, Preface, Spade-Work!
1 Whose Game?: Blue-Red Hackenbush / The Tweedledum and Tweedledee Argument / How Can You Have Half a Move? / ...And Quater Moves? / Ski-Jumps for Beginners / Don't Just Take the Average! / What Is a Jump Worth? / Toads-and-Frogs / Do Our Methods Work? / What is a Game? / When Is a Move Good? / Figure 8(d) Is Worth 3/4 / References and Further Reading
2 Finding the Correct Numbers is Simplicity Itself: Which Numbers Are Which? / Simplicity's the Answer! / Simplest Forms for Numbers / Cutcake / Maundy Cake / A Few More Applications of the Simplicity Rule / Positive, Negative, Zero, and Fuzzy Positions / Hackenbush Hotchpotch / Sums of Arbitrary Games / The Outcome of a Sum / The Negative of a Game / Vancelling a Game with its Negative / Comparing Two Games / Comparing Hackenbush Positions / The Game of Col / A Star is Born! / Col Contains Such Values / Game Trees / Green Hackenbush, The Game of Nim, and Nimbers / Get Nimble with Nimbers / Childish Hackenbush / Seating Couples / Winning Strategies / The Sum of Two Finite Games Can Last Forever / A Theorem about Col / Col-lections and Collapsings / Maundy Cake / Another Cutcake Variant / How Childish Can You Get? / References and Further Reading
3 Some Harder Games and How to Make Them Easier: Poker-Nim / Northcott's Game / Bogus Nim-Heaps and the Mex Rule / The Sprague-Grundy Theory for Impartial Games / The White Knight / Adding Nimbers / Wyt Queens / Reversible Moves in General Games / Deleting Dominated Options / Toads-and-Frogs with Ups and Downs / Game Tracking and Identification / What Are Flowers Worth? / A Gallimaufry of Games / Who Wins Sums of Ups, Downs, Stars, and Numbers? / A Closer Look at the Stars / The Values {Up|Up} and {0|Up} / The Upstart Equality / Gift Horses / The Nim-Addition Rule in Several Variations / Wyt Queens and Wythoff's Game / Answers to Figures 8, 9, and 11 / Toad Versus Frog / Two Theorems on Simplifying Games / Berlekamp's Rule for Hackenbush Strings / References and Further Reading
4 Taking and Breaking: Kayles / Games With Heaps / P-Positions and N-Positions / Subtraction Games / Ferguson's Pairing Property / Grundy Scales / Other Take-Away Games / Dawson's Chess / The Periodicity of Kayles / Other Take-and-Break Games / Dawson's Kayles / Variations / Guiles / Treblecross / Officers / Grundy's Game / Prim and Dim / Replication of Nim-Values / Double and Quadruple Kayles / Lasker's Nim / Some Remarks on Periodicity / Standard Form / A Compendium of Octal Games / Additional Remarks / Sparse Spaces and Common Cosets / Will Grundy's Game Be Ultimately Periodic? / Sparse Space Spells Spedd / Games Displaying Arithmetic Periodicity / A Non-Arithmetic-Periodicity Theorem / Some Hexadecimal Games / References and Further Reading
5 Numbers, Nimbers and Numberless Wonders: Domineering / Switch Games / Cashing Cheques / Some Simple Hot Games / The Tiniest Games / Modern Management of Cash Flow / Tiny Toads-and-Frogs / The Opening Dissection of Toads-and-Frogs / Seating Boys and Girls / Toads-and-Frogs Completely Dissected / Toads-and-Frogs with Two Spaces / More Domineering Values / References
6 The Heat of Battle: Snort / A Graphic Picture of Farm Life / Don't Move In A Number Unless There's Nothing Else To Do! / What's in it for Me? / The Left and Right Stops / Cooling--and the Thermograph / Cooling Settles the Mean Value / How to Draw Thermographs / When A Player Has Several Options / Foundations for Thermographs / Examples of Thermographs / Who Is To Move From The Final Stop? / A Four-Stop Example / The Cheque-Market Exchange / Equitable Games / Excitable Games / The Extended Thermograph / Getting the Right Slant / The Thermostatic Strategy / Thermostrat's Not Often Wrong! / Heating / Does The Excitement Show? / Selling Infinitesimal Values To Your Profit-Conscious Friends / Nim, Remoteness and Suspense in Hot Games / Overheating / Cooling the Children's Party / But How Do You Cool A Party By One Degree? / Three Snort Lemmas / A Short Dictionary / Proof of the Number Avoidance Theorem / Why Thermostrat Works / Blockbusting / ... An On We Go! / Hotstrat, Thermostrat and Sentestrat / References and Further Reading
7 Hackenbush: Green Hackenbush / Green Trees / Fusion / Proving The Fusion Principle / A More Complicated Picture / Impartial Maundy Cake / Blue-Red Hackenbush / Hackenbush Hotchpotch / Flower Gardens / The Blue Flower Ploy / Atomic Weights / Atomic Weights of Jungles / Making Tracks in the Jungle / Tracking Down an Animal / Amazing Jungle / Smart Game in the Jungle / Unparted Jungles / Blue-Red Hackenbush Can Be Hard, Too! / Redwood Furniture / Redwood Beds / How Big Is A Redwood Bed? / What''s The Bottle / Ordinal Addition, The Colon Principle, and Norton's Lemma / Both Ways of Adding Impartial Games / Many-Way Maundy Cake / Solution to Figure 15 / Tracks Cleared Through the Amazing Jungle / How Hard Was The Bed? / NP-Hardness / The Bottle at the End of Chapter 7 / References and Further Reading
8 It's a Small Small Small Small Word: Uppitness and Uncertainty / Computing Atomic weights / Eatcake / Splitting The Atom / Turn-and-Eatcake / All You Need To Know About Atomic Weights But Were Afraid To Ask / Childish Hackenbush Hotchpotch / Atomic Weights of Lollipops / Proving Things About Atomic Weights / Playing Among the Flowers / When is g as uppity as h? / Go Fly A Kite! / All Remote Stars Agree / Large and Small Flowerbeds / Playing Under a Lucky Star / General Multiples of Up / Proof of the Remote Star Rules / Proof That Atomic Weight = Uppitiness / The Wholeness of Hackenbush Hotchpotch / Proper Care of the Eccentric / Galvinized Games / Trading Triangles / Multiples of Positive Games / Multiples Work! / First for the "With" Rule / Now for the "Without" Rule / Shifting Multiples Of Up By Stars / A Theorem on Incentives / Seating Families of Five / references
Index

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, vol.2

Preface to the Second Edition, Preface, Change of Heart
9 If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em!: All the King's Horses / We Can Join Any Games / How Remote Is a Horse? / What If the First Horse to Get Stuck Wins? / A Slightly Slower Join / Moving Horses Impartially / Cutting Every Cake / Eatcakes / When to Put Your Money on the Last Horse / Slow Horses Join the Also-Rans / Let Them Eat Cake / All the King's Horses on a Quater-Infinite Board / Cutting Your Cakes and Eating Them / References and Further Reading
10 Hot Battles Followed by Cold Wars: Cold Games - Numbers Are Still Numbers / Hot Games - The Battle Is Joined! / Tolls, Timers and Tallies / Which Is the Best Option? / Hot Positions / Cold Positions / Tepid Positions / A Tepid Game / Select Boys and Girls / Mrs. Grundy / How to Play Mise`re Unions of Partizan Games / Urgent Unions (Shotgun Weddings?) / Predeciders - Overriders and Suiciders / Falada / Two More Falada Games / Baked Alaska / A Felicitous Falada Field / The Rules for Tallies on Infinite Tolls / Time May Be Shorther than You Think!
11 Games Infinite and Indefinite: Infinite Enders / The Infinite Ordinal Numbers / Other Numbers / Infinite Nim / The Infinite Sprague-Grundy and Smith Theories / Some Superheavy Atoms / Fixed, Mixed and Free / Onsides and Offsides, Upsums and Downsums / Stoppers / on, off and dud / How Big Is on? / It's Bigger than All of Them! / Sidling Towards a Game / Sidling Picks Sides / Stoppers Have Only One Side / 'Tis!-'Tis n!-'Tis!-'Tis n!-... / Loopy Hackenbush / Disentangling Loopy Hackenbush / Loopily Infinite Hackenbush / Sisyphus / Living with Loops / Comparing Loopy Games / The Swivel Chair Strategy / Stoppers Are Nice / Plumtrees Are Nicer! / Taking Care of Plumtrees / Working With Upsums and Downsums / on, off and hot / A Summary of Some Sum Properties / The House of Cards / The Degree of Loopiness / Classes and Varieties / No Highway / Backsliding Toads-and-Frogs / Bach's Carousel / Getting on in Checkers / Proof of the Sidling Theorem / Answer to Exercise One / tis and tisn / upon / Backsliding Toads-and-Frogs / KOs in Go / References and Further Reading
12 Games Eternal - Games Entailed: Fair Shares and Varied Pairs / How Soon Can You Win? / There May Be Open Positions (O-Positions) / Adders-and-Ladders / Just How Loopy Can You Get? / Corrall Automotive Betterment Scheme / Sharing Out Other Kinds of Nut / Fair Shares and Unequal Partners / Sweets and Nuts, and Maybe a Date? / The Additional Subtraction Games / Horsefly / Selective and Subselective Compounds of Impartial Games / Entailing Moves / Sunny and Loony Positions / Calculating with Entailed Values / Nim with Entailing Moves / Goldbach's Nim / Wyt Queens with Trains / Adding Tails to Prim and Dim / Complimenting Moves / On-the-Rails / De Bono's L-Games / Proving the Outcome Rules for Loopy Positions / Fair Shares and Unequal Partners / Were Your Ways Winning Enough? / Did You Moves First in Horsefly? / References and Further Reading
13 Survival in the Lost World: Mise`re Nim / Reversible Moves / The Endgame Proviso / The Awful Truth / What's Left of the Old Rules? / As Easy as Two and Two? / The Mise`re Form of Grundy's Game / Animals and Their Genus / What Can We With the Genus? / Firm, Fickle and Tame / Which Animals are Tame... / ...and Which are Restive? / Some Tame Animals in the Good Child's Zoo / Mise`re Wyt Queens / Jelly Beans and Lemon Drops / Stalking Adders and Taking Squares / "But What if They're Wild?" Asks the Bad Child / Mise`re Kayles / The Noah's Ark Theorem / The Half-Tame Theorem / Guiles / Dividing Rulers / Dawson, Officers, Grundy / All Subtraction Games Reduce to Nim / Prim and Dim / Proof of the Noah's Ark Theorem / Mise`re Octal Games / Notes / Stop Press: Even More Games are Tameable!
Grossary, Index

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, vol.3

Preface to the Second Edition, Preface to the Original Edition, Games in Clubs!
14 Turn and Turn About: Turning Turtles / Mock Turtles / Odius and Evil Numbers / Moebius, Mogul and Gold Moidores / The Mock Turtle Theorem / Why Moebius? / Mogul / Motley / Twins, Triplets, Etc. / The Ruler Game / Circumscribed Games / Turnips (or Ternups) / Grunt / Sym / Two-Dimensional Turning Games / Acrostic Twins / Turning Corners / Nim-Multiplication / Swirling Tartans / The Tartan Theorem / Rugs, Carpets, Windows and Doors / Acrostic Games / Stripping and Streaking / Uglification and Derision / Unlocking Doors / Sparring, Boxing and Fencing / "Coins" (or Heaps) with Infinitely Many (or 2^(2^N) "Sides" / References and Further Reading
15 Chips and Strips: The Silver Dollar Game - Profit from Gaming Tables / Antonim / Synoim / Simonim / Staircase Fives / Twopins (pronounced "Tuppins") / Cram / Welter's Game / Four-Coin Welter is Just Nim / And So's Three-Coin Welter! / The Congruence Modulo 16 / Frieze Patterns / Inverting the Welter Function / The Abacus Positions / The Abacus Strategy / The Mis&grave;ere Form of Welter's Game / Kotzig's Nim / Fibonacci Nim / More Generally Bounded Nim / Epstein's Put-or-Take-a-Square Game / Tribulations and Fibulations / Third One Lucky / Hickory, Dickory, Dock / D.U.D.E.N.E.Y / Strings of Pearls / Schuhstrings / The Princess and the Roses / One-Step, Two-Step / More on Subtraction Games / Smallest Nim, Largest Nim / Moore's Nim_k / The More the Merrier / Moore and More / Not with a Bang but a Whim / Did You Win the Silver Dollar? / How Was Your Arithmetic? / In Put-or-Take-a-Square, 92 Is an N-Position / Tribulations and Fibulations / Our Code of Behavior for Princes / References and Further Reading
16 Dots-and-Boxes: Double-Dealing Leads to Double-Crosses / How Long Is "Long"? / The 4-Box Game / The 9-Box Game / The 16-Box Game / Other Shapes of Board / Dots-and-Boxes and Strings-and-Coins / Nimstring / Why Long Is Long / To Take or Not to Take a Coin in Nimstring / Sprague-Grundy Theory for Nimstring Graphs / All Long Chains Are the Same / Which Mutations Are Harmless / Chopping and Changing / Vines / Dots + Doublecrosses = Turns / How Dodie Can Win the 4-Box Game / When Is it Best to Lose Control? / Computing the Values of Vines / Loony Endgames Are NP-Hard / Solutions to Dots-and-Boxes Problems / Some More Nimstring Values / Nimbers for Nimstring Arrays / References and Further Reading
17 Spots and Sprouts: Rims / Rails / Loops-and-Branches / Contours / Lucasta / A Child's Guide to Normal Lucasta / The Mis&grave;ere Form of Lucasta / The Positions (7,3,1) and (11,1,1) / Cabbages; or Bugs, Caterpillars and Cocoons / Jocasta / Sprouts / Brussels Sprouts / Stars-and-Stripes / Bushenhack / Genetic Codes for Nim / Bushenhack Positions Have Genetic Codes! / Von Neumann Hackenbush / The Joke in Jocasta / The Worm in Brussels Sprouts / Bushenhack / References and Further Reading
18 The Emperor and His Money: Sylver Coinage / How Long Will It Last? / Some Openings Are Bad / Are All Openings Bad? / Not All Openings Are Bad / Strategy Stealing / Quiet Ends / Doubling and Tripling? / Halving and Thiding? / Finding the Right Combinations / What Shall I do When g is Two / The Great Unknown / Are Outcomes Computable? / The Etiquette of Sylver Cinage / Chomp / Zig-Zag / More Cliques for Sylver Coinage / 5-Pairs / Positions Containing 6 / Sylver Coinage Has Infinite Nim-Values / A Few Final Questions / References and Further Reading
19 The King and the Consumer: Chessgo, Kinggo and Dukego / Quadraphage / The Angel and the Square-Eater / Strategy and Tactics / Dukego / The Edge Attack / The Edge Defence / A Memoryless Edge Defence / The Edge-Corner Attack / Strategic and Tactical Stones / Corner Tactics / Defence on Large Square Boards / The 33 x 33 Board / The Centred King / Leaving the Central Region / The Cornered King / The Sidelined King / How Chas. Can Win on a 34 x 34 Board / Rectangular Boards / Many-Dimensional Angels / Games of Encirclement / Wolves-and-Sheep / Tablut / Saxon Hnefatafl / King and Rook Versus King / References and Further Reading
20 Fox and Geese: Some Properties of Our Strategy / What Is the Value of Fox-and-Geese? / Fox-Flocks-Fox / Towards Greater Precision / The Indefinite Board / How the Geese Survive Triumphantly / Eight Exciting Escapades / Tactics and Startegy for the Fox / Fox's Play on Definite Boards / The Scrimmage Sequence / Values of the Initial Positions / Sophisticated New Software / Values of FOXTAC Positions / High Region / Welton's Region of Value 2over / Lower "Delta" Region / Initial Values / Parity in the High Scrimmage Region / Early Values / The abc's to Trifurcate the Two-Ish Transition / Extending the Backbone to Lower Altitudes / Early Values of Other Formations / Resolving the Exceptions / Museums / Solutions to Problems / Open Problems / Maharajah and Sepoys / References and Further Reading
21 Hare and Hounds: The French Military Hunt / Two Trial Games / History / The Different Kinds to Place / The Opposition / When Has the Hare Escaped? / Losing the Opposition / A Strategy for the Hare / On the Small Board / On the Medium and Larger Boards / Answers to Questions / A Sound Bound for a Hound? / All Is Found for the Small Board Hound / Proof of the Thirty-One Theorem / References and Further Reading
22 Lines and Squares: Tit-Tat-Toe, My First Go, Three Jolly Butcher Boys All in a Row / Magic Fifteen / Spit Not So, Fat Fop, as if in Pan! / Jam / How Long Can You Fool Your Friends? / Analysis of Tic-Tac-Toe / Ovid's Game, Hopscotch, Les Pendus / Six Men's Morris / Nine Men's Morris / Three Up / Four-in-a-Row / Five-in-a-Row / G0-Moku / Six, Seven, Eight, Nine,..., in a Row / n-Dimensional k-in-a-Row / Strategy Stealing in Tic-Tac-Toe Games / Hex / Bridgit / How Does the First Player Win? / The Shannon Switching Game / The Black Path Game / Lewthwaite's Game / Meander / Winners and Losers / Dodgem / Dodgerydoo / Philosopher's Football / Count foxy words And stay awake Using lively wit / Amazons / Checkers / Chess / Cherries / Clobber / Go / Konane / Reversi-Othello / Scrabble / Shogi / Sowing Games / Answer to Problems / References and Further Reading
Index to Volumes 1-3

Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, vol.4

Preface to the Second Edition, Preface to the Original Edition, Solotaire Diamonds!
23 Purging Pegs Properly: Central Solitaire / Dudeney, Bergholt and Beasley / Packages and Purges / Packages Provide Perfect Panacea / The Rule of Two and the Rule of Three / Some Pegs Are More Equal Than Others / Reiss's 16 Solitaire Position Classes / The Continental Board / Playing Backwards and Forwards / Pagoda Functions / The Solitaire Army / Managing Your Resources / Unproductivity / The Prodigal Son's Opening / Deficit Accounting and the G.N.P. / Accounting for Two-Peg Reversal Problems / Forgetting the Order Can Be Useful / Beasley's Exit Theorems / A Stolid Survivor Problem / Another Hard Problem / The Spinner / Our Fine Finalist / Doing the Splits / All Soluble One-Peg Problems on the Continental Board / The Last Two Moves / A20-Man Solitaire Army / Fool's Solitaire, ETC. / Beasley Proves Bergholt Is Best / The Classical Problems / References and Further Reading
24 Pursuicing Puzzles Purposefully: Soma / Blocks-in-a-Box / Hidden Secrets / The Hidden Secrets of Soma / Hoffman's Arithmetico-Geometric Puzzle / Coloring Three-by-Threee-by-Three by Three, Bar Three / Wire and String Puzzles / The Magic Mirror Method / The Barmy Braid / The Artful Arrow / The Magic Movie Method / Party Tricks and Chinese Rings / Chinese Rings and the Gray Code / The Tower of Hanoi / A Solitaire-Like Puzzle and Some Coin-Sliding Problems / The Fifteen Puzzle and the Lucky Seven Puzzle / All Other Courses for Point-to-Point / Rubik's Hungarian Cube - Buvos Kocka / Just How Chaotic Can the Cube Get? / Chief Colors and Chief Faces / Curling the Cube / A: Aloft, Around (Adjust) and About / B: Bottom Layer Corner Cubelets / C: Central Layer Edge Cubelets / D: Domiciling the Top Edge Cubelets / E: Exchanging Pairs of Top Corners / F: Finishing Flips and Fiddles / Explanations / Improvements / Elena's Elements / Are You Partial to Partial Puzzles? / Other "Hungarian" Objects / A Trio of Sliding Block Puzzles / Tactics for Solving Such Puzzles / Counting Your Moves / Paradoxical Pennies / Paradoxical Dice / More on Magic Squares / The Magic Tesseract / Adam's Amazing Magic Hexagon / Strip-Jack-Naked, or Beggar-My-Neighbour **1 / The Great Tantalizer / Polyominoes, Polyiamonds and Searching Policy / Alan Schoen's Cyclotome / MacMahon's Superdominoes / Quintominal Dodecahedra / The Doomsday Rule / ... and Easter Easily / How Old is the Moon? / Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashna) / Blocks-in-a-Box / The Somap / Solutions to the Arithmetico-Geometric Puzzle / ... and One for "Three" Too! / Hares and Tortoises / The Lucky Seven Puzzle / Top Face Alterations for the Hungarian Cube / The Century Puzzle / Adams's Amazing Magic Hexagon / Flags of the Allies Solution / All Hexiamond Solutions Found / The Three Quintominal Dodecahedra / Answer to Exercise for Experts / Where Do the Black Edges of MacMahon Squares Go? / A Doomsday Answer / References and Further Reading
25 What is Life?: Still Life / Life Cycles / The Glider and Other Space Ships / The Unpredictability of Life / Gardens of Eden / Life's Problems are Hard! / Making a Life Computer / When Glider Meets Glider / How to Make a NOT Gate / The Eater / Gliders Can Build Their Own Guns! / The Kickback Reaction / Thinning a Glider Stream / Building Blocks for Our Computer / Auxiliary Storage / How We Move Blocks / A Little Difficulty / Mission Completed - Will Self-Destruct / Life is Still Being Lived! / Life Computers Can Reproduce! / Genetic Engineering / Whither Life? / References and Further Reading

zpět