Two agents are placed randomly on nodes of a known graph. They are aware of their own position, up to certain symmetries of the graph, but not that of the other agent. At each step, each agent may stay where he is or move to an adjacent node. Their common aim is to minimize the expected number of steps required to meet (occupy the same node). We consider two cases determined by whether or not the players are constrained to use identical strategies. This work extends that of Anderson and Weber on ‘discrete locations’ (complete graph) and is related to continuous (time and space) rendezvous as formulated by Alpern. Probabilistic notions arise in the random initial placement, in the random symmetries determining spatial uncertainty of agents, and through the use of mixed strategies.

In this paper we consider two optimization problems and two game problems. In each problem, a particle is hidden on the real line (sometimes randomly, and sometimes by an antagonistic hider), and a seeker, starting at the origin, wishes to find the particle with minimal expected cost. We consider a fairly wide class of cost functions depending upon the position of the particle and the time used to discover it. For the games we obtain the values and (∊-) optimal strategies. For the optimization problems we obtain qualitative features of (∊-) optimal searches.