  These lecture notes are based on a short course on mis\`ere quotients offered
at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, in November 2006. They
include an introduction to impartial games, starting from the beginning; the
basic mis\`ere quotient construction; a proof of the Guy--Smith--Plambeck
Periodicity Theorem; and statements of some recent results and open problems in
the subject.

Combinatorics;Commutative Algebra