Olympiad problems

2013 Saudi Arabia BMO TST, 7

Ayman wants to color the cells of a $50 \times 50$ chessboard into black and white so that each $2 \times 3$ or $3 \times 2$ rectangle contains an even number of white cells. Determine the number of ways Ayman can color the chessboard.

2000 Tournament Of Towns, 5

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

What is the largest number of knights that can be put on a $5 \times 5$ chess board so that each knight attacks exactly two other knights? (M Gorelov)

VMEO II 2005, 9

Tags: Chessboard , queens , Queen , combinatorics

On a board with $64$ ($8 \times 8$) squares, find a way to arrange $9$ queens and $ 1$ king so that every queen cannot capture another queen.

2010 Germany Team Selection Test, 3

Tags: modular arithmetic , combinatorics , IMO Shortlist , Chessboard , Chess rook

On a $999\times 999$ board a [i]limp rook[/i] can move in the following way: From any square it can move to any of its adjacent squares, i.e. a square having a common side with it, and every move must be a turn, i.e. the directions of any two consecutive moves must be perpendicular. A [i]non-intersecting route[/i] of the limp rook consists of a sequence of pairwise different squares that the limp rook can visit in that order by an admissible sequence of moves. Such a non-intersecting route is called [i]cyclic[/i], if the limp rook can, after reaching the last square of the route, move directly to the first square of the route and start over. How many squares does the longest possible cyclic, non-intersecting route of a limp rook visit? [i]Proposed by Nikolay Beluhov, Bulgaria[/i]

1973 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 184

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

The king have revised the chess-board $8\times 8$ having visited all the fields once only and returned to the starting point. When his trajectory was drawn (the centres of the squares were connected with the straight lines), a closed broken line without self-intersections appeared. a) Give an example that the king could make $28$ steps parallel the sides of the board only. b) Prove that he could not make less than $28$ such a steps. c) What is the maximal and minimal length of the broken line if the side of a field is $1$?

2016 Federal Competition For Advanced Students, P2, 3

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

Consider arrangements of the numbers $1$ through $64$ on the squares of an $8\times 8$ chess board, where each square contains exactly one number and each number appears exactly once. A number in such an arrangement is called super-plus-good, if it is the largest number in its row and at the same time the smallest number in its column. Prove or disprove each of the following statements: (a) Each such arrangement contains at least one super-plus-good number. (b) Each such arrangement contains at most one super-plus-good number. Proposed by Gerhard J. Woeginger

2019 Tuymaada Olympiad, 3

Tags: combinatorics , minimum value , minimum , Chessboard

The plan of a picture gallery is a chequered figure where each square is a room, and every room can be reached from each other by moving to adjacent rooms. A custodian in a room can watch all the rooms that can be reached from this room by one move of a chess queen (without leaving the gallery). What minimum number of custodians is sufficient to watch all the rooms in every gallery of $n$ rooms ($n > 2$)?

2010 Saint Petersburg Mathematical Olympiad, 7

Tags: combinatorics , geometry , rectangle , Chessboard , invariant

$200 \times 200$ square is colored in chess order. In one move we can take every $2 \times 3$ rectangle and change color of all its cells. Can we make all cells of square in same color ?

2019 Saudi Arabia BMO TST, 3

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard , Coloring

For $n \ge 3$, it is given an $2n \times 2n$ board with black and white squares. It is known that all border squares are black and no $2 \times 2$ subboard has all four squares of the same color. Prove that there exists a $2 \times 2$ subboard painted like a chessboard, i.e. with two opposite black corners and two opposite white corners.

2000 Poland - Second Round, 3

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard , graph theory , Poland , combinatorics unsolved

On fields of $n \times n$ chessboard $n^2$ different integers have been arranged, one in each field. In each column, field with biggest number was colored in red. Set of $n$ fields of chessboard name [i]admissible[/i], if no two of that fields aren't in the same row and aren't in the same column. From all admissible sets, set with biggest sum of numbers in it's fields has been chosen. Prove that red field is in this set.

1990 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 519

Tags: Chessboard , square table , Coloring , combinatorics

Can the squares of a $1990 \times 1990$ chessboard be colored black or white so that half the squares in each row and column are black and cells symmetric with respect to the center are of opposite color?

1984 IMO Longlists, 24

Tags: modular arithmetic , combinatorics , Chessboard , IMO Shortlist

(a) Decide whether the fields of the $8 \times 8$ chessboard can be numbered by the numbers $1, 2, \dots , 64$ in such a way that the sum of the four numbers in each of its parts of one of the forms [list][img]http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/download/file.php?id=28446[/img][/list] is divisible by four. (b) Solve the analogous problem for [list][img]http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/download/file.php?id=28447[/img][/list]

2020 Switzerland Team Selection Test, 1

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

Let $n \geq 2$ be an integer. Consider an $n\times n$ chessboard with the usual chessboard colouring. A move consists of choosing a $1\times 1$ square and switching the colour of all squares in its row and column (including the chosen square itself). For which $n$ is it possible to get a monochrome chessboard after a finite sequence of moves?

1987 Poland - Second Round, 3

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

On a chessboard with dimensions 1000 by 1000 and squares colored in the usual way in white and black, there is a set A consisting of 1000 squares. Any two fields of set A can be connected by a sequence of fields of set A so that subsequent fields have a common side. Prove that there are at least 250 white fields in set A.

2008 Postal Coaching, 4

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard

An $8\times 8$ square board is divided into $64$ unit squares. A ’skew-diagonal’ of the board is a set of $8$ unit squares no two of which are in the same row or same column. Checkers are placed in some of the unit squares so that ’each skew-diagonal contains exactly two squares occupied by checkers’. Prove that there exist two rows or two columns which contain all the checkers.

2017 QEDMO 15th, 2

Tags: Coloring , Chessboard , combinatorics , combinatorial geometry

Markers in the colors violet, cyan, octarine and gamma were placed on all fields of a $41\times 5$ chessboard. Show that there are four squares of the same color that form the vertices of a rectangle whose edges are parallel to those of the board.

2012 QEDMO 11th, 4

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard , Coloring

The fields of an $n\times n$ chess board are colored black and white, such that in every small $2\times 2$-square both colors should be the same number. How many there possibilities are for this?

1987 Tournament Of Towns, (143) 4

Tags: algebra , Chessboard , Sum , distance , geometry

On a chessboard a square is chosen . The sum of the squares of distances from its centre to the centre of all black squares is designated by $a$ and to the centre of all white squares by $b$. Prove that $a = b$. (A. Andj ans, Riga)

1984 IMO Shortlist, 7

Tags: modular arithmetic , combinatorics , Chessboard , IMO Shortlist

(a) Decide whether the fields of the $8 \times 8$ chessboard can be numbered by the numbers $1, 2, \dots , 64$ in such a way that the sum of the four numbers in each of its parts of one of the forms [list][img]http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/download/file.php?id=28446[/img][/list] is divisible by four. (b) Solve the analogous problem for [list][img]http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/download/file.php?id=28447[/img][/list]

1992 IMO Longlists, 61

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard , counting , algorithm , IMO Shortlist , IMO Longlist

There are a board with $2n \cdot 2n \ (= 4n^2)$ squares and $4n^2-1$ cards numbered with different natural numbers. These cards are put one by one on each of the squares. One square is empty. We can move a card to an empty square from one of the adjacent squares (two squares are adjacent if they have a common edge). Is it possible to exchange two cards on two adjacent squares of a column (or a row) in a finite number of movements?

1998 Tournament Of Towns, 2

Tags: Chessboard , combinatorics , Even

A chess king tours an entire $8\times 8$ chess board, visiting each square exactly once and returning at last to his starting position. Prove that he made an even number of diagonal moves. (V Proizvolov)

1983 Polish MO Finals, 3

Tags: Chessboard , infinite chessboard , combinatorics

Consider the following one-player game on an infinite chessboard. If two horizontally or vertically adjacent squares are occupied by a pawn each, and a square on the same line that is adjacent to one of them is empty, then it is allowed to remove the two pawns and place a pawn on the third (empty) square. Prove that if in the initial position all the pawns were forming a rectangle with the number of squares divisible by $3$, then it is not possible to end the game with only one pawn left on the board.

1974 IMO Longlists, 1

Tags: geometry , rectangle , combinatorics , IMO , IMO 1974 , Chessboard , dissection

We consider the division of a chess board $8 \times 8$ in p disjoint rectangles which satisfy the conditions: [b]a)[/b] every rectangle is formed from a number of full squares (not partial) from the 64 and the number of white squares is equal to the number of black squares. [b]b)[/b] the numbers $\ a_{1}, \ldots, a_{p}$ of white squares from $p$ rectangles satisfy $a_1, , \ldots, a_p.$ Find the greatest value of $p$ for which there exists such a division and then for that value of $p,$ all the sequences $a_{1}, \ldots, a_{p}$ for which we can have such a division. [color=#008000]Moderator says: see [url]https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h58591[/url][/color]

Fractal Edition 2, P4

Tags: Chessboard

In the bottom-left corner of a chessboard (with 8 rows and 8 columns), there is a king. Marius and Alexandru play a game, with Alexandru going first. On their turn, each player moves the king either one square to the right, one square up, or one square diagonally up-right. The player who moves the king to the top-right corner square wins. Who will win if both players play optimally?

2024 Tuymaada Olympiad, 5

Tags: combinatorics , Chessboard , board , Coloring

Given a board with size $25\times 25$. Some $1\times 1$ squares are marked, so that for each $13\times 13$ and $4\times 4$ sub-boards, there are atleast $\frac{1}{2}$ marked parts of the sub-board. Find the least possible amount of marked squares in the entire board.