Unravelling of a game payoff

A covering of an infinite game unravels a payoff when its inverse image is a clopen subset of the new infinite-play space. A closed payoff can be unravelled by letting Player I announce a subset of the first exit positions, and letting Player II accept that announcement or challenge one announced position. Accepted plays stop at exit positions, while challenged plays are forced through the challenged exit. Strategy-transfer maps make this more than an ordinary continuous representation of the payoff. Depth-stabilizing inverse limits of coverings handle countable unions in a transfinite induction.

After a fixed even-depth prefix, Player I announces a move and a set $X$ of first exit positions from a closed set of infinite plays. Player II accepts, or challenges an exit $r\in X$. Acceptance follows the old game until the first exit, where I wins exactly when that exit belongs to $X$. A challenge forces play through $r$ and then resumes the old game. Infinite accepted plays remain in the closed payoff; infinite challenged plays are outside it. Thus the pulled-back payoff is clopen. For an I-strategy, transfer by initially accepting and switching to the challenged simulation at an exit in $X$. For an II-strategy, announce the set of exits that this strategy never challenges under any announcement; it must accept this set. An exit outside it permits a challenged simulation, while an exit inside it is a premature loss for II. These maps prove the game covering lifting condition, rather than merely continuity of the projection.