Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T16:14:58.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A RESTRICTION OF EUCLID

Part of: Game theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

GRANT CAIRNS*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, La Trobe University, Melbourne 3086, Australia (email: G.Cairns@latrobe.edu.au)
NHAN BAO HO
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, La Trobe University, Melbourne 3086, Australia (email: nbho@students.latrobe.edu.au, honhanbao@yahoo.com)
*
For correspondence; e-mail: G.Cairns@latrobe.edu.au
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Euclid is a well-known two-player impartial combinatorial game. A position in Euclid is a pair of positive integers and the players move alternately by subtracting a positive integer multiple of one of the integers from the other integer without making the result negative. The player who makes the last move wins. There is a variation of Euclid due to Grossman in which the game stops when the two entries are equal. We examine a further variation which we called M-Euclid where the game stops when one of the entries is a positive integer multiple of the other. We solve the Sprague–Grundy function for M-Euclid and compare the Sprague–Grundy functions of the three games.

MSC classification

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Publishing Association Inc. 2012

References

[1]Cairns, G. and Ho, N. B., ‘Ultimately bipartite subtraction games’, Australas. J. Combin. 48 (2010), 213220.Google Scholar
[2]Cairns, G. and Ho, N. B., ‘Min, a combinatorial game having a connection with prime numbers’, Integers 10 (2010), 765770.Google Scholar
[3]Cairns, G. and Ho, N. B., ‘Some remarks on End-Nim’, Int. J. Comb. 2011 (2011), Art. ID 824742, 9 pp.Google Scholar
[4]Cairns, G., Ho, N. B. and Lengyel, T., ‘The Sprague–Grundy function of the real game Euclid’, Discrete Math. 311 (2011), 457462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[5]Cole, A. J. and Davie, A. J. T., ‘A game based on the Euclidean algorithm and a winning strategy for it’, Math. Gaz. 53 (1969), 354357.Google Scholar
[6]Grossman, J. W., ‘A nim-type game, problem #1537’, Math. Mag. 70 (1997), 382.Google Scholar
[7]Nivasch, G., ‘The Sprague–Grundy function of the game Euclid’, Discrete Math. 306(21) (2006), 27982800.Google Scholar