Combinatorial games modeling seki in Go
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Combinatorial games modeling seki in Go
zbMATH Open document ID: 1298.91053
author: Andrey Gol'berg
author: Konrad Borys
author: Vladimir Gurvich
author: Diogo V. Andrade
author: Gábor Rudolf
published in: Discrete Mathematics
publication date: 2014-06-25T00:00:00Z
review text: This paper describes results and conjectures on two closely related games, SEKI and D-SEKI, played on matrices of non-negative integers. These games were inspired of so-called seki positions in the game Go. This paper should be viewed as an investigation into the structure of SEKI and D-SEKI, without particular practical applications to Go. The two games are two-player turned-based perfect information partizan finite games which can end in a draw, so a priori there are nine possible outcome classes for SEKI and D-SEKI positions. Most of the paper consists of partial characterizations of the matrices that fall into particular outcome classes. The authors pay particular attention to the drawn matrices, called \textit{seki}, and single out among the seki the drawn matrices where each player has a unique non-losing move (\textit{complete seki}). The methods of the paper are combinatorial and elementary and the structure of the games seems interesting and pleasant. The paper contains four conjectures, three about complete seki and a fourth about seki, that seem amenable to both computer-aided brute force analysis and more mathematical methods.
reviewed by: Gabriel C. Drummond-Cole
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A46
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 91A05
zbMATH DE Number: 6308303
zbMATH Keywords: combinatorial games
zbMATH Keywords: Go
zbMATH Keywords: draw
zbMATH Keywords: pass
zbMATH Keywords: seki
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: j.disc.2014.04.005
OpenAlex ID: W2018503978
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DOI: 10.1016/J.DISC.2014.04.005
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6308303