Abstract We investigate Maker–Breaker games on graphs of size $\aleph _1$ in which Maker’s goal is to build a copy of the host graph. We establish a firm dependence of the outcome of the game on the axiomatic framework. Relating to this, we prove that there is a winning strategy for Maker in the $K_{\omega ,\omega _1}$ -game under ZFC+MA+ $\neg $ CH and a winning strategy for Breaker under ZFC+CH. We prove a similar result for the $K_{\omega _1}$ -game. Here, Maker has a winning strategy under ZF+DC+AD, while Breaker has one under ZFC+CH again.

It is known that the cop number $c(G)$ of a connected graph $G$ can be bounded as a function of the genus of the graph $g(G)$. The best known bound, that $c(G) \leq \left\lfloor \frac{3 g(G)}{2}\right\rfloor + 3$, was given by Schröder, who conjectured that in fact $c(G) \leq g(G) + 3$. We give the first improvement to Schröder's bound, showing that $c(G) \leq \frac{4g(G)}{3} + \frac{10}{3}$.