Infinite draughts and the logic of infinitary games, Oslo, November 2021

This will be a talk 11 November 2021 for the Oslo Seminar in Mathematical Logic, meeting online via Zoom at 10:15am CET (9:15am GMT) at Zoom: 671 7500 0197

Abstract. I shall give an introduction to the logic of infinite games, including the theory of transfinite game values, using the case of infinite draughts as a principal illustrative instance. Infinite draughts, also known as infinite checkers, is played like the finite game, but on an infinite checkerboard stretching without end in all four directions. In recent joint work with Davide Leonessi, we proved that every countable ordinal arises as the game value of a position in infinite draughts. Thus, there are positions from which Red has a winning strategy enabling her to win always in finitely many moves, but the length of play can be completely controlled by Black in a manner as though counting down from a given countable ordinal. This result is optimal for games having countably many options at each move—in short, the omega one of infinite draughts is true omega one.

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