The online Ramsey turnaround game is a game between two players, Builder and Painter, on a board of $n$ vertices using $3$ colors, for a fixed graph $H$ on at most $n$ vertices. The goal of Painter is to force a monochromatic copy of $H$, the goal of Builder is to avoid this as long as possible. In each round of the game, Builder exposes one new edge and is allowed to forbid the usage of one color for Painter to color this newly exposed edge, and Painter colors the edge according to this restriction. The game is over as soon as Painter manages to achieve a monochromatic copy of $H$. For sufficiently large $n$, we consider the smallest number $f(n, H)$ of edges so that Painter can always win after $f(n, H)$ edges have been exposed by Builder. In addition, we define $f(H)$ to be the smallest $n$ such that Painter can always win on a clique with $n$ vertices. We give bounds for both functions and show that this problem is closely related to other concepts in extremal graph theory, such as polychromatic colorings, set-coloring Ramsey numbers, chromatic Ramsey numbers, and 2-color Turán numbers.
The restricted $(m,n;N)$-online Ramsey game is a game played between two players, Builder and Painter. The game starts with $N$ isolated vertices. Each turn Builder picks an edge to build and Painter chooses whether that edge is red or blue, and Builder aims to create a red $K_m$ or blue $K_n$ in as few turns as possible. The restricted online Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(m,n;N)$ is the minimum number of turns that Builder needs to guarantee her win in the restricted $(m,n;N)$-online Ramsey game. We show that if $N=r(n,n)$, \[ \tilde{r}(n,n;N)\le \binom{N}{2} - Ω(N\log N), \] motivated by a questi…
A graph is properly edge-colored if no two adjacent edges have the same color. The smallest number of edges in a graph any of whose proper edge colorings contains a totally multicolored copy of a graph H is the size anti-Ramsey number AR_s(H) of H. This number in offline and online setting is investigated here.
For two graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$, the online Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(G_1,G_2)$ is the smallest number of edges that Builder draws on an infinite empty graph to guarantee that there is either a red copy of $G_1$ or a blue copy of $G_2$, under the condition that Builder draws one edge in each round and Painter immediately colors it red or blue. For online Ramsey numbers of paths, Cyman, Dzido, Lapinskas, and Lo conjectured that $\tilde{r}(P_4, P_{\ell+1}) = \lceil(7\ell+2)/5\rceil$ for all $\ell \ge 3$ [Electron. J. Combin. 22 (2015) #P1.15]. We verify the conjecture in this paper.
The restricted online Ramsey numbers were introduced by Conlon, Fox, Grinshpun and He in 2019. In a recent paper, Briggs and Cox studied the restricted online Ramsey numbers of matchings and determined a general upper bound for them. They proved that for $n=3r-1=R_2(r K_2)$ we have $\tilde{R}_{2}(r K_2;n) \leq n-1$ and asked whether this was tight. In this short note, we provide a general lower bound for these Ramsey numbers. As a corollary, we answer this question of Briggs and Cox, and confirm that for $n=3r-1$ we have $\tilde{R}_{2}(r K_2;n) = n-1$. We also show that for $n'=4r-2=R_3(r K_2)…
Given a class $\mathcal{C}$ of graphs and a fixed graph $H$, the online Ramsey game for $H$ on $\mathcal C$ is a game between two players Builder and Painter as follows: an unbounded set of vertices is given as an initial state, and on each turn Builder introduces a new edge with the constraint that the resulting graph must be in $\mathcal C$, and Painter colors the new edge either red or blue. Builder wins the game if Painter is forced to make a monochromatic copy of $H$ at some point in the game. Otherwise, Painter can avoid creating a monochromatic copy of $H$ forever, and we say Painter wi…
Online Ramsey game is played between Builder and Painter on an infinite board $K_{\mathbb N}$. In every round Builder selects an edge, then Painter colors it red or blue. Both know target graphs $H_1$ and $H_2$. Builder aims to create either a red copy of $H_1$ or a blue copy of $H_2$ in $K_{\mathbb N}$ as soon as possible, and Painter tries to prevent it. The online Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(H_1,H_2)$ is the minimum number of rounds such that the Builder wins. We study $\tilde{r}(C_k,C_n)$ where $k$ is fixed and $n$ is large. We show that $\tilde{r}(C_k,C_n)=2n+\mathcal O(k)$ for an absolute c…
The $(m,n)$-online Ramsey game is a combinatorial game between two players, Builder and Painter. Starting from an infinite set of isolated vertices, Builder draws an edge on each turn and Painter immediately paints it red or blue. Builder's goal is to force Painter to create either a red $K_m$ or a blue $K_n$ using as few turns as possible. The online Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(m,n)$ is the minimum number of edges Builder needs to guarantee a win in the $(m,n)$-online Ramsey game. By analyzing the special case where Painter plays randomly, we obtain an exponential improvement \[ \tilde{r}(n,n) \…
Given two graphs $G$ and $H$, the online Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(G,H)$ is defined to be the minimum number of rounds that Builder can always guarantee a win in the following $(G, H)$-online Ramsey game between Builder and Painter. Starting from an infinite set of isolated vertices, in each round Builder draws an edge between some two vertices, and Painter immediately colors it red or blue. Builder's goal is to force either a red copy of $G$ or a blue copy of $H$ in as few rounds as possible, while Painter's goal is to delay it for as many rounds as possible. Let $K_{1,3}$ denote a star with t…
Given two graphs $G$ and $H$, a size Ramsey game is played on the edge set of $K_\mathbb{N}$. In every round, Builder selects an edge and Painter colours it red or blue. Builder's goal is to force Painter to create a red copy of $G$ or a blue copy of $H$ as soon as possible. The online (size) Ramsey number $\tilde r(G,H)$ is the number of rounds in the game provided Builder and Painter play optimally. We prove that $\tilde r(C_4,P_n)\le 2n-2$ for every $n\ge 8$. The upper bound matches the lower bound obtained by J. Cyman, T. Dzido, J. Lapinskas, and A. Lo, so we get $\tilde r(C_4,P_n)=2n-2$ f…
Consider a two-player game between players Builder and Painter. Painter begins the game by picking a coloring of the edges of $K_n$, which is hidden from Builder. In each round, Builder points to an edge and Painter reveals its color. Builder's goal is to locate a particular monochromatic structure in Painter's coloring by revealing the color of as few edges as possible. The fewest number of turns required for Builder to win this game is known as the restricted online Ramsey number. In this paper, we consider the situation where this "particular monochromatic structure" is a large matching or …
An online Ramsey game is a game between Builder and Painter, alternating in turns. They are given a graph $H$ and a graph $G$ of an infinite set of independent vertices. In each round Builder draws an edge and Painter colors it either red or blue. Builder wins if after some finite round there is a monochromatic copy of the graph $H$, otherwise Painter wins. The online Ramsey number $\widetilde{r}(H)$ is the minimum number of rounds such that Builder can force a monochromatic copy of $H$ in $G$. This is an analogy to the size-Ramsey number $\overline{r}(H)$ defined as the minimum number such th…
Given two graph families $\mathcal H_1$ and $\mathcal H_2$, a size Ramsey game is played on the edge set of $K_\mathbb{N}$. In every round, Builder selects an edge and Painter colours it red or blue. Builder is trying to force Painter to create as soon as possible a red copy of a graph from $\mathcal H_1$ or a blue copy of a graph from $\mathcal H_2$. The online (size) Ramsey number $\tilde{r}(\mathcal H_1,\mathcal H_2)$ is the smallest number of rounds in the game provided Builder and Painter play optimally. We prove that if $\mathcal H_1$ is the family of all odd cycles and $\mathcal H_2$ is…
The classical result in the theory of random graphs, proved by Erdos and Renyi in 1960, concerns the threshold for the appearance of the giant component in the random graph process. We consider a variant of this problem, with a Ramsey flavor. Now, each random edge that arrives in the sequence of rounds must be colored with one of R colors. The goal can be either to create a giant component in every color class, or alternatively, to avoid it in every color. One can analyze the offline or online setting for this problem. In this paper, we consider all these variants and provide nontrivial upper …
Consider the following one-player game played on an initially empty graph with $n$ vertices. At each stage a randomly selected new edge is added and the player must immediately color the edge with one of $r$ available colors. Her objective is to color as many edges as possible without creating a monochromatic copy of a fixed graph $F$. We use container and sparse regularity techniques to prove a tight upper bound on the typical duration of this game with an arbitrary, but fixed, number of colors for a family of $2$-balanced graphs. The bound confirms a conjecture of Marciniszyn, Spöhel and Ste…
Consider the following random process: The vertices of a binomial random graph $G_{n,p}$ are revealed one by one, and at each step only the edges induced by the already revealed vertices are visible. Our goal is to assign to each vertex one from a fixed number $r$ of available colors immediately and irrevocably without creating a monochromatic copy of some fixed graph $F$ in the process. Our first main result is that for any $F$ and $r$, the threshold function for this problem is given by $p_0(F,r,n)=n^{-1/m_1^*(F,r)}$, where $m_1^*(F,r)$ denotes the so-called \emph{online vertex-Ramsey densit…
For any graph $F$ and any integer $r\geq 2$, the \emph{online vertex-Ramsey density of $F$ and $r$}, denoted $m^*(F,r)$, is a parameter defined via a deterministic two-player Ramsey-type game (Painter vs.\ Builder). This parameter was introduced in a recent paper \cite{mrs11}, where it was shown that the online vertex-Ramsey density determines the threshold of a similar probabilistic one-player game (Painter vs.\ the binomial random graph $G_{n,p}$). For a large class of graphs $F$, including cliques, cycles, complete bipartite graphs, hypercubes, wheels, and stars of arbitrary size, a simple …
We develop a general embedding method based on the Friedman-Pippenger tree embedding technique (1987) and its algorithmic version, essentially due to Aggarwal et al. (1996), enhanced with a roll-back idea allowing to sequentially retrace previously performed embedding steps. We use this method to obtain the following results. -We show that the size-Ramsey number of logarithmically long subdivisions of bounded degree graphs is linear in their number of vertices, settling a conjecture of Pak (2002). -We give a deterministic, polynomial time online algorithm for finding vertex-disjoint paths of p…
