2025/11/12 by Souji Shizuma, Shizuma, Souji
Computer Science · Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Artificial Intelligence in Games #FOS: Mathematics #Game Theory and Applications #Game Theory and Voting Systems #Logic (math.LO)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.09154
openalex publication_date 2025/11/12 · openalex created_date 2025/11/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The prisoners and hats puzzle, or simply the hat puzzle, is a family of games in which a group of prisoners are each assigned a colored hat and are asked to guess the color of their own hat. Various versions of the puzzle arise depending on the number of prisoners, the number of possible hat colors, and the information available to them before and after the game begins. These puzzles are broadly classified according to whether the prisoners' declarations are made simultaneously or non-simultaneously. In this paper we present a general theorem concerning the existence of a winning strategy when the declarations are non-simultaneous. We also discuss the relationship between the construction of such strategies and the Axiom of Choice, as well as their connection to the simultaneous-declaration case.