Nimble

The game of Nimble is much the same as the game of Scoring. The only difference is that now there is no limitation on the length of a move. (This makes one chip game trivial.)

Nimble is Nim in disguise. (Each chip represents the size of a heap or a number of check marks. Another one was Turning Turtles.) After learning to play the Scoring game it may not come as a surprise. For a single chip, the Sprague-Grundy function is trivial: g(p) = p. Summing up a few games directly leads to the theory of Nim.

Reference

1. E.R.Berlekamp, J.H.Conway, R.K.Guy, Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, v1, A K Peters, 2001.
2. J.H.Conway, On Numbers And Games, A K Peters, 2001
3. R. K. Guy, Fair Game, Comap's Explorations in Mathematics, 1989

Copyright © 1996-2009 Alexander Bogomolny