Enumeration by kernel positions

We introduce a class of two-player games on posets with a rank function, in which each move of the winning strategy is unique. This allows one to enumerate the kernel positions by rank. The main example is a simple game on words in which the number of kernel positions of rank n is a signed factorial multiple of the nth Bernoulli number of the second kind. Generalizations to the degenerate Bernoulli numbers and to negative integer substitutions into the Bernoulli polynomials are developed. Using an appropriate scoring system for each function with an appropriate Newton expansion we construct a game in which the expected gain of a player equals the definite integral of the function on the interval [0,1].