Scoring Nim

Abstract

Nim is a well-known combinatorial game in which two players alternately remove stones from distinct piles. A player who removes the last stone wins under the normal play rule, while a player loses under the mis\`ere play rule. In this paper, we propose a new variant of Nim with scoring that generalizes both the normal and mis\`ere play versions of Nim as special cases. We study the theoretical aspects of this extended game and analyze its fundamental properties, such as optimal strategies and payoff functions.