Combinatorial game theory

Combinatorial game theory (CGT) is a branch of applied mathematics and theoretical computer science that typically studies sequential games with perfect information. Study is largely confined to two-player games which have a position in which the players take turns changing in defined ways or moves to achieve a defined winning condition. CGT has not traditionally studied games of chance or those that use imperfect or incomplete information, favoring games which offer perfect information in which the state of the game and the set of available moves is always known by both players. Combinatorial games include well-known games like chess, checkers, Go, Arimaa, Hex, and Connect6. They also include one-player combinatorial puzzles, and no-player automata, like Conway's Game of Life. In CGT, the moves in these games are represented as a game tree.