Competitive Colorings of Oriented Graphs

Abstract

Nešetřil and Sopena introduced a concept of oriented game chromatic number and developed a general technique for bounding this parameter. In this paper, we combine their technique with concepts introduced by several authors in a series of papers on game chromatic number to show that for every positive integer $k$, there exists an integer $t$ so that if ${\cal C}$ is a topologically closed class of graphs and ${\cal C}$ does not contain a complete graph on $k$ vertices, then whenever $G$ is an orientation of a graph from ${\cal C}$, the oriented game chromatic number of $G$ is at most $t$. In particular, oriented planar graphs have bounded oriented game chromatic number. This answers a question raised by Nešetřil and Sopena. We also answer a second question raised by Nešetřil and Sopena by constructing a family of oriented graphs for which oriented game chromatic number is bounded but extended Go number is not.