Non-holonomicity conjecture for the two-player winning probability
Let , and let be the probability generating function for the two-player pile game with boundary, with the initial pile size. Define the first player's winning probability by
A sequence is holonomic if it satisfies a linear recurrence with polynomial coefficients. Non-holonomicity conjecture. The winning probability sequence is not holonomic: there are no specific and polynomials such that
The conjecture concerns the apparent absence of a linear recurrence for the two-player winning probabilities, in contrast with related pile games where the corresponding sequence is holonomic of small order. The evidence presented is computational and the conjecture remains open.
References
Primary source
Ho-Hon Leung and Thotsaporn "Aek'' Thanatipanonda, “Game of Pure Chance with Restricted Boundary”, arXiv:2001.05108 (2020).
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