Abstract. We survey recent developments in the theory of impartial combinatorial games in misere play, focusing on how Sprague–Grundy theory of normal-play impartial games generalizes to misere play via the indistinguishability quotient construction [P2]. This paper is based on a lecture given on 21 June 2005 at the Combinatorial Game Theory Workshop at the Banff International Research Station. It has been extended to include a survey of results on misere games, a list of open problems involving them, and a summary of MisereSolver [AS2005], the excellent Java-language program for misere indistinguishability quotient construction recently developed by Aaron Siegel. Many wild misere games that have long appeared intractable may now lie within the grasp of assiduous losers and their faithful computer assistants, particularly those researchers and computers equipped with MisereSolver.

Introduction

That's the first paragraph from the thirteenth chapter (“Survival in the Lost World”) of Berlekamp, Conway, and Guy's encyclopedic work on combinatorial game theory, Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays [WW].