The Ungar Games

Abstract

Let L be a finite lattice. Inspired by Ungar’s solution to the famous slopes problem, we define an Ungar move to be an operation that sends an element \(x\in L\) to the meet of \(\{x\}\cup T\), where T is a subset of the set of elements covered by x. We introduce the following Ungar game. Starting at the top element of L, two players—Atniss and Eeta—take turns making nontrivial Ungar moves; the first player who cannot do so loses the game. Atniss plays first. We say L is an Atniss win (respectively, Eeta win) if Atniss (respectively, Eeta) has a winning strategy in the Ungar game on L. We first prove that the number of principal order ideals in the weak order on \(S_n\) that are Eeta wins is \(O(0.95586^nn!)\). We then consider a broad class of intervals in Young’s lattice that includes all principal order ideals, and we characterize the Eeta wins in this class; we deduce precise enumerative results concerning order ideals in rectangles and type-A root posets. We also characterize and enumerate principal order ideals in Tamari lattices that are Eeta wins. Finally, we conclude with some open problems and a short discussion of the computational complexity of Ungar games.