Three children wanted to make a table-game. For that purpose they wished to enumerate the $mn$ squares of an $m \times n$ game-board by the numbers $1, ... ,mn$ in such way that the numbers $1$ and $mn$ lie in the corners of the board and the squares with successive numbers have a common edge. The children agreed to place the initial square (with number $1$) in one of the corners but each child wanted to have the final square (with number $mn$ ) in different corner. For which numbers $m$ and $n$ is it possible to satisfy the wish of any of the children?

In a checkered square of size $2021\times 2021$ all cells are initially white. Ivan selects two cells and paints them black. At each step, all the cells that have at least one black neighbor by side are painted black simultaneously. Ivan selects the starting two cells so that the entire square is painted black as fast as possible. How many steps will this take? [i]Ivan Yashchenko[/i]

The cells of an $n \times n$ board are labelled with the numbers $1$ through $n^2$ in the usual way. Let $n$ of these cells be selected, no two of which are in the same row or column. Find all possible values of the sum of their labels.

Two cells in a $20 \times 20$ board are adjacent if they have a common edge (a cell is not considered adjacent to itself). What is the maximum number of cells that can be marked in a $20 \times 20$ board such that every cell is adjacent to at most one marked cell?

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Ana and Beto play a game on a $2 \times n$ board (with 2 rows and $n$ columns). First, Ana writes a digit from 1 to 9 in each cell of the board such that in each column the two written digits are different. Then, Beto erases a digit from each column. Reading from left to right, a number with $n$ digits is formed. Beto wins if this number is a multiple of $n$; otherwise, Ana wins. Determine which of the two players has a winning strategy in the following cases: $\bullet$ (a) $n = 1001$. $\bullet$ (b) $n = 1003$.

In each unit cell of a finite set of cells of an infinite checkered board, an integer is written so that the sum of the numbers in each row, as well as in each column, is divided by $2002$. Prove that every number $\alpha$ can be replaced by a certain number $\alpha'$ , divisible by $2002$ so that $|\alpha-\alpha'| <2002$ and the sum of the numbers in all rows, and in all columns will not change.

A table with three rows and 100 columns is given. Initially, in the left cell of each row there are $400\cdot 3^{100}$ chips. At one move, Petya marks some (but at least one) chips on the table, and then Vasya chooses one of the three rows. After that, all marked chips in the selected row are shifted to the right by a cell, and all marked chips in the other rows are removed from the table. Petya wins if one of the chips goes beyond the right edge of the table; Vasya wins if all the chips are removed. Who has a winning strategy? [i]Proposed by P. Svyatokum, A. Khuzieva and D. Shabanov[/i]

Consider a checkered $3m\times 3m$ square, where $m$ is an integer greater than $1.$ A frog sits on the lower left corner cell $S$ and wants to get to the upper right corner cell $F.$ The frog can hop from any cell to either the next cell to the right or the next cell upwards. Some cells can be [i]sticky[/i], and the frog gets trapped once it hops on such a cell. A set $X$ of cells is called [i]blocking[/i] if the frog cannot reach $F$ from $S$ when all the cells of $X$ are sticky. A blocking set is [i] minimal[/i] if it does not contain a smaller blocking set.[list=a][*]Prove that there exists a minimal blocking set containing at least $3m^2-3m$ cells. [*]Prove that every minimal blocking set containing at most $3m^2$ cells.

The numbers $1$ to $1024$ are written one per square on a $32 \times 32$ board, so that the first row is $1, 2, ... , 32$, the second row is $33, 34, ... , 64$ and so on. Then the board is divided into four $16 \times 16$ boards and the position of these boards is moved round clockwise, so that $AB$ goes to $DA$ $DC \,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\,\, \, CB$ then each of the $16 \times 16 $ boards is divided into four equal $8 \times 8$ parts and each of these is moved around in the same way (within the $ 16 \times 16$ board). Then each of the $8 \times 8$ boards is divided into four $4 \times 4$ parts and these are moved around, then each $4 \times 4$ board is divided into $2 \times 2$ parts which are moved around, and finally the squares of each $2 \times 2$ part are moved around. What numbers end up on the main diagonal (from the top left to bottom right)?