Journal of Integer Sequences, Vol. 17 (2014), Article 14.5.7

Wythoff Nim Extensions and Splitting Sequences


Urban Larsson
Mathematical Sciences
Chalmers University of Technology
and University of Gothenburg
Göteborg
Sweden

Abstract:

We study extensions of the classical impartial combinatorial game of Wythoff Nim. The games are played on two heaps of tokens, and have symmetric move options, so that, for any integers 0 ≤ xy, the outcome of the upper position (x, y) is identical to that of (y, x). First we prove that φ-1 = 2/(1+√5) is a lower bound for the lower asymptotic density of the x-coordinates of a given game's upper P-positions. The second result concerns a subfamily, called a Generalized Diagonal Wythoff Nim, recently introduced by Larsson. A certain split of P-positions, distributed in a number of so-called P-beams, was conjectured for many such games. The term split here means that an infinite sector of upper positions is void of P-positions, but with infinitely many upper P-positions above and below it. By using the first result, we prove this conjecture for one of these games, called (1,2)-GDWN, where a player moves as in Wythoff Nim, or instead chooses to remove a positive number of tokens from one heap and twice that number from the other.


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Received September 18 2012; revised versions received November 22 2013; January 6 2014; February 18 2014; March 10 2014; April 3 2014. Published in Journal of Integer Sequences, April 4 2014.


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