Forbidden configurations: exact bounds determined by critical substructures.
We consider the following combinatorial game: two players, Fast and Slow, claim k-element subsets of [n] = 1, 2, …, n alternately, one at each turn, so that both players are allowed to pick sets that intersect all previously claimed subsets. The game ends when there does not exist any unclaimed k-subset that meets all already claimed sets. The score of the game is the number of sets claimed by the two players, the aim of Fast is to keep the score as low as possible, while the aim of Slow is to postpone...