The Complexity of Node Blocking for Dags

Abstract: We consider the following modification of annihilation game called node blocking. Given a directed graph, each vertex can be occupied by at most one token. There are two types of tokens, each player can move his type of tokens. The players alternate their moves and the current player $i$ selects one token of type $i$ and moves the token along a directed edge to an unoccupied vertex. If a player cannot make a move then he loses. We consider the problem of determining the complexity of the game: given an arbitrary configuration of tokens in a directed acyclic graph, does the current player has a winning strategy? We prove that the problem is PSPACE-complete.