Determinacy for in¯nite games with more than two players with preferences Benedikt LÄowe Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 24, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
[email protected] Abstract We discuss in¯nite zero-sum perfect-information games with more than two players. They are not determined in the traditional sense, but as soon as you ¯x a preference function for the players and assume common knowledge of rationality and this preference function among the players, you get determinacy for open and closed payo® sets. 2000 AMS Mathematics Subject Classi¯cation. 91A06 91A10 03B99 03E99. Keywords. Perfect Information Games, Coalitions, Preferences, Determinacy Ax- ioms, Common Knowledge, Rationality, Gale-Stewart Theorem, Labellings 1 Introduction The theory of in¯nite two-player games is connected to the foundations of mathematics. Statements like \Every in¯nite two-player game with payo® set in the complexity class ¡ is determined, i.e., one of the two players has a winning strategy" 1 The author was partially ¯nanced by NWO Grant B 62-584 in the project Verza- melingstheoretische Modelvorming voor Oneindige Spelen van Imperfecte Infor- matie and by DFG Travel Grant KON 192/2003 LO 834/4-1. He would like to ex- tend his gratitude towards Johan van Benthem (Amsterdam), Boudewijn de Bruin (Amsterdam), Balder ten Cate (Amsterdam), Derrick DuBose (Las Vegas NV), Philipp Rohde (Aachen), and Merlijn Sevenster (Amsterdam) for discussions on many-player games. are called determinacy axioms (for two-player games). When we sup- plement the standard (Zermelo-Fraenkel) axiom system for mathematics with determinacy axioms, we get a surprisingly ¯ne calibration of very interesting logical systems.