Combinatorial Games

József Beck is a Professor in the Mathematics Department of Rutgers University. He has received the Fulkerson Prize for Research in Discrete Mathematics and has written around 100 research publications. He is the co-author, with W. L. Chen, of the pioneering monograph Irregularities of Distribution.

Preface; A summary of the book in a nutshell; Part I. Weak Win and Strong Draw: 1. Win vs. weak win; 2. The main result: exact solutions for infinite classes of games; Part II. Basic Potential Technique – Game-Theoretic First and Second Moments: 3. Simple applications; 4. Games and randomness; Part III. Advanced Weak Win – Game-Theoretic Higher Moment: 5. Self-improving potentials; 6. What is the Biased Meta-Conjecture, and why is it so difficult?; Part IV. Advanced Strong Draw – Game-Theoretic Independence: 7. BigGame-SmallGame decomposition; 8. Advanced decomposition; 9. Game-theoretic lattice-numbers; 10. Conclusion; Appendix A. Ramsey numbers; Appendix B. Hales–Jewett theorem: Shelah's proof; Appendix C. A formal treatment of positional games; Appendix D. An informal introduction to game theory; Appendix E. New results; Complete list of the open problems; What kinds of games? A dictionary; Dictionary of the phrases and concepts; References.