A q-player impartial avoidance game for generating finite groups

Abstract We study a q-player variation of the impartial avoidance game introduced by Anderson and Harary, where q is a prime. The game is played by the q players taking turns selecting previously-unselected elements of a finite group. The losing player is the one who selects an elemen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Benesh, Bret J, Gaetz, Marisa R
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/131441
Description
Summary:Abstract We study a q-player variation of the impartial avoidance game introduced by Anderson and Harary, where q is a prime. The game is played by the q players taking turns selecting previously-unselected elements of a finite group. The losing player is the one who selects an element that causes the set of jointly-selected elements to be a generating set for the group, with the previous player winning. We introduce a ranking system for the other players to prevent coalitions. We describe the winning strategy for these games on cyclic, nilpotent, dihedral, and dicyclic groups.