Mis\`ere canonical forms of partizan games

Abstract

We show that partizan games admit canonical forms in mis\`ere play. The proof is a synthesis of the canonical form theorems for normal-play partizan games and mis\`ere-play impartial games. It is fully constructive, and algorithms readily emerge for comparing mis\`ere games and calculating their canonical forms. We use these techniques to show that there are precisely 256 games born by day 2, and to obtain a bound on the number of games born by day 3.