Phutball Endgames are Hard
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We show that, in John Conway's board game Phutball (or Philosopher's Football), it is NP-complete to determine whether the current player has a move that immediately wins the game. In contrast, the similar problems of determining whether there is an immediately winning move in checkers, or a move that kings a man, are both solvable in polynomial time.
9 pages, 8 figures. Revised to include additional references on the complexity of checkers
9 pages, 8 figures. Revised to include additional references on the complexity of checkers