Many people use mathematics to win at games. Hearn, who is currently working on artificial intelligence at Dartmouth, and Demaine (electrical engineering and computer science, MIT) are studying games to develop another form of computation that they call "constraint logic". By using this they are able to classify games into groups of varying difficulty, with any number of players. They break down the games into bits, in which each allows only a yes/no decision and progress from there into charts that are often quite complex. Games are grouped in three main types: space, time and nondeterminate. The book presupposes a good knowledge of advanced calculus and Boolean logic. The implications of constraint logic have much more to do with the development of artificial intelligence than cleaning up in Las Vegas, but for those who are interested in Martian rovers capable of making decisions; this is an exciting computational tool. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)