ST699 | Jan-Apr 2024

ST699. Special Topics in Games

2024

(co-instructor with Dr. Jyothi Krishnan.)

About the Course

We are going to play some games and analyze them! Here are some typical questions we will explore:

• Who is going to win assuming optimal play?
• What is the complexity of determining the winner (or a winning strategy) given the rules of a game?

If you are curious about how this typically goes, start with the excellent talks here and here.

If you want to play: here’s Subtraction, and here’s Sim.

Target Audience

You will find this course interesting if:

• you enjoy playing games,
• you enjoy logic puzzles like this one or probability puzzles like this one, or
• you like box-stacking challenges.

Prerequisites

The course is mostly self-contained, but a general degree of comfort with proofs and an interest in games (either in theory or practice) would be useful.

References

1. Game Theory: A Playful Introduction, by Matt DeVos and Deborah A. Kent
2. Combinatorial Game Theory, by Aaron N. Siegel
3. Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays, by Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John H. Conway, and Richard K. Guy
4. Lessons in Play, by Michael H. Albert, Richard J. Nowakowski, and David Wolfe
5. Math Games with Bad Drawings, by Ben Orlin
6. Games With Pencil And Paper, by Eric Solomon

Timings and Venue

Venue: 7/101

Timings: 2PM to 5PM on Saturdays (with a 20-minute break at 3:20PM).

Evaluation policy

Pick any one of the following for 20 points:

• Create your own game and demonstrate a non-trivial analysis
• Implement a known game in as an interactive JS application
• Develop new insights about the complexity of an existing game

Further, there will be:

• Four assignments, issued on the 10th and due on the 20th of each month = 20 X 4 = 80 points
• No exams!

The use of assistance from tools like chatGPT or similar is permitted for the development of the interactive experiences.

Register

• For IITGN students, register through IMS as usual.

• Note to students of the IITM online BS program: you may register for this course officially for credit by signing up as a part-time visiting student of IIT Gandhinagar. Please get in touch for details.

• Others: please send me an email at: neeldhara.m@iitgn.ac.in.

• Materials for the assignments will be announced on this website.

• For announcements, please join this Whatsapp Group.

Lectures

Assignments

The first part of each assignment can be found on Mathmatize. Timelines on future assignments are suggestive and may change slightly.

You can find a solution template for the second part of the January assignment here. Feel free to make a copy and edit the LaTeX directly, or take a print out and write your answers in the blank spaces provided. Please send your solutions by email with the subject line: Topics in Games: January Assignment.