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Concept
Combinatorial game theory
Summary
Combinatorial game theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study has been largely confined to two-player games that have a position that the players take turns changing in defined ways or moves to achieve a defined winning condition. Combinatorial game theory has not traditionally studied games of chance or those that use imperfect or incomplete information, favoring games that offer perfect information in which the state of the game and the set of available moves is always known by both players. However, as mathematical techniques advance, the types of game that can be mathematically analyzed expands, thus the boundaries of the field are ever changing. Scholars will generally define what they mean by a "game" at the beginning of a paper, and these definitions often vary as they are specific to the game being analyzed and are not meant to represent the entire scope of the field.
Combinatorial games include well-known games such as chess, checkers, and Go, which are regarded as non-trivial, and tic-tac-toe, which is considered trivial, in the sense of being "easy to solve". Some combinatorial games may also have an unbounded playing area, such as infinite chess. In combinatorial game theory, the moves in these and other games are represented as a game tree.
Combinatorial games also include one-player combinatorial puzzles such as Sudoku, and no-player automata, such as Conway's Game of Life, (although in the strictest definition, "games" can be said to require more than one participant, thus the designations of "puzzle" and "automata".)
Game theory in general includes games of chance, games of imperfect knowledge, and games in which players can move simultaneously, and they tend to represent real-life decision making situations.
Combinatorial game theory has a different emphasis than "traditional" or "economic" game theory, which was initially developed to study games with simple combinatorial structure, but with elements of chance (although it also considers sequential moves, see extensive-form game).
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