XCoder_420's blog

How To Approach Problems Tagged With Games?
By XCoder_420, history, 2 years ago, In English

Can Some Veteran CP'ers Share Some Tips That How To Approach Any Game Related Problem In General? The Type Of Observations I Should Look For And How To Better The Abstract Thinking Required In These Type Of Problems. Sometimes I Get Completely Stuck In Them Even Though They Are <1500 Rated. Thanks In Advance :)

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2 years ago, # |
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I would advice you CSES Game theory problems(the last 5-6 problems in Maths Sections).
Also this is a great resource for understand intuition behind Nim Game and Grundy Numbers.

For general games problems that don't require game theory but just observations, I guess practice will make you perfect. Just do a good number of such problems.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Thanks a lot, man, that's a beautiful blog. I hope it helps a bit. :)

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2 years ago, # |
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If (and most of the time) we need to write constructive algorithms, it's usually about finding the winning positions and losing positions, and make the correct transitions between them.

If you think a bit, game trees and Zermelo's theorem will come natural to you, and after that, I guess thinking about games will be comfortable.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    It seems a bit advanced tbh, but I'll definitely try to incorporate these.

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2 years ago, # |
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With my experience, I'll try to approach with some constructive idea using intuition or popular theorems (Grundy number, games on arbitrary graphs, ... ).

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2 years ago, # |
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Play lots of 2-player games with someone irl. After improving, you'll notice common patterns in easier CP variants.

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