Games of No Chance 5

Edited by Urban Larsson

This book surveys the state of the art in the theory of combinatorial games, that is, games not involving chance or hidden information. Enthusiasts will find a wide variety of exciting topics, from a trailblazing presentation of scoring to solutions of three piece ending positions of bidding chess. Theories and techniques in many subfields are covered, such as universality, Wythoff Nim variations, mise`re play, partizan bidding (a.k.a. Richman games), loopy games, and the algebra of placement games. Also included are an updated list of unsolved problems, extremely efficient algorithms for Taking and Breaking games, a historical exposition of binary num- bers and games by David Singmaster, chromatic Nim variations, renormalization for combinatorial games, and a survey of temperature theory by Elwyn Berlekamp, one of the founders of the field.