A book published by IMPA Press is a finalist for the 2026 Jabuti Academic Award

The book Combinatorial Game Theory in Graphs, published by IMPA Press, is among the five finalists for the 2026 Jabuti Academic Award. Written by Samuel N. Araújo, Nicolas A. Martins, Nicolas Nisse, and Rudini M. Sampaio, the book had already won, this year, The 5th Elon Lages Lima Award, awarded by the Brazilian Mathematical Society (SBM) and the Brazilian Society of Applied and Computational Mathematics (SBMAC).

The book was based on the mini-course of the same name presented during the 35th Brazilian Mathematics Colloquium, held at IMPA in July 2025. The course was the most popular introductory course of the event, attracting the largest number of participants. Based on this experience, the authors have compiled a resource that brings together the key principles of combinatorial game theory as applied to graphs, making it a leading reference in Portuguese on the subject.

This work has yielded significant achievements. Established by the Brazilian Book Chamber (CBL), the Jabuti Academic Award recognizes outstanding works in the scientific, technical, and professional fields, honoring publications that contribute to the advancement of research, the production of knowledge, and academic education in Brazil.

This recognition comes on top of winning the Elon Lages Lima Award, which aims to encourage national scholarly output in mathematics and its applications. The award honors books written by Brazilian authors or by authors who work professionally in Brazil and that contribute to the education of students and the dissemination of mathematical knowledge.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to combinatorial game theory as applied to graphs, a field that brings together concepts from mathematics, combinatorics, and computer science to study strategy games. Through this field of research, the authors investigate how to identify winning strategies, analyze problems of high computational complexity, and understand the mathematical properties that arise in different types of games.

Combinatorial game theory has its origins in studies conducted as early as the beginning of the 20th century, with the mathematical solution to the Nim game. In recent decades, however, interest in its application to graphs has grown significantly, spurring a wealth of scientific research. Much of this knowledge, however, has remained scattered across articles and books focused on specific aspects of the field. In this context, Combinatorial Game Theory on Graphs brings together, in a single volume, the main theoretical foundations and their applications, offering introductory yet up-to-date material.

Organized into three parts, this book presents the fundamentals of combinatorial game theory, its applications to recently studied graph games, and an introduction to partisan game theory and surreal numbers. Designed to be self-contained, the book is intended to serve both students who are new to the field and researchers interested in its most recent developments.