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Main Authors: Ai, Jiangdong, Gao, Jun, Xu, Zixiang, Yan, Xin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06830
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author Ai, Jiangdong
Gao, Jun
Xu, Zixiang
Yan, Xin
author_facet Ai, Jiangdong
Gao, Jun
Xu, Zixiang
Yan, Xin
contents The strong Ramsey game $R(\mathcal{B}, H)$ is a two-player game played on a graph $\mathcal{B}$, referred to as the board, with a target graph $H$. In this game, two players, $P_1$ and $P_2$, alternately claim unclaimed edges of $\mathcal{B}$, starting with $P_1$. The goal is to claim a subgraph isomorphic to $H$, with the first player achieving this declared the winner. A fundamental open question, persisting for over three decades, asks whether there exists a graph $H$ such that in the game $R(K_n, H)$, $P_1$ does not have a winning strategy in a bounded number of moves as $n \to \infty$. In this paper, we shift the focus to the variant $R(K_n \sqcup K_n, H)$, introduced by David, Hartarsky, and Tiba, where the board $K_n \sqcup K_n$ consists of two disjoint copies of $K_n$. We prove that there exist infinitely many graphs $H$ such that $P_1$ cannot win in $R(K_n \sqcup K_n, H)$ within a bounded number of moves through a concise proof. This perhaps provides evidence for the existence of examples to the above longstanding open problem.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_06830
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Strong Ramsey game on two boards
Ai, Jiangdong
Gao, Jun
Xu, Zixiang
Yan, Xin
Combinatorics
05C57
The strong Ramsey game $R(\mathcal{B}, H)$ is a two-player game played on a graph $\mathcal{B}$, referred to as the board, with a target graph $H$. In this game, two players, $P_1$ and $P_2$, alternately claim unclaimed edges of $\mathcal{B}$, starting with $P_1$. The goal is to claim a subgraph isomorphic to $H$, with the first player achieving this declared the winner. A fundamental open question, persisting for over three decades, asks whether there exists a graph $H$ such that in the game $R(K_n, H)$, $P_1$ does not have a winning strategy in a bounded number of moves as $n \to \infty$. In this paper, we shift the focus to the variant $R(K_n \sqcup K_n, H)$, introduced by David, Hartarsky, and Tiba, where the board $K_n \sqcup K_n$ consists of two disjoint copies of $K_n$. We prove that there exist infinitely many graphs $H$ such that $P_1$ cannot win in $R(K_n \sqcup K_n, H)$ within a bounded number of moves through a concise proof. This perhaps provides evidence for the existence of examples to the above longstanding open problem.
title Strong Ramsey game on two boards
topic Combinatorics
05C57
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06830