Two players take turns writing down all proper non-decreasing fractions with denominators from $1 $ to $1999$ and at the same time writing a "$+$" sign before each fraction. After all such fractions are written out, their sum is found. If this amount is an integer number, then the one who made the entry last wins, otherwise his opponent wins. Who will be able to secure a win?

At the beginning of a two-player game, the number $2004!$ is written on the blackboard. The players move alternately. In each move, a positive integer smaller than the number on the blackboard and divisible by at most $20$ different prime numbers is chosen. This is subtracted from the number on the blackboard, which is erased and replaced by the difference. The winner is the player who obtains $0$. Does the player who goes first or the one who goes second have a guaranteed win, and how should that be achieved?

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Two players $A$ and $B$ play a game in which they take turns choosing positive integers $k \le n$. The rules of the game are: (i) A player cannot choose a number that has been chosen by either player on any previous turn. (ii) A player cannot choose a number consecutive to any of those the player has already chosen on any previous turn. (iii) The game is a draw if all numbers have been chosen; otherwise the player who cannot choose a number anymore loses the game. The player $A$ takes the first turn. Determine the outcome of the game, assuming that both players use optimal strategies. [i]Proposed by Finland[/i]

Let $n$ be a given positive integer. Sisyphus performs a sequence of turns on a board consisting of $n + 1$ squares in a row, numbered $0$ to $n$ from left to right. Initially, $n$ stones are put into square $0$, and the other squares are empty. At every turn, Sisyphus chooses any nonempty square, say with $k$ stones, takes one of these stones and moves it to the right by at most $k$ squares (the stone should say within the board). Sisyphus' aim is to move all $n$ stones to square $n$. Prove that Sisyphus cannot reach the aim in less than \[ \left \lceil \frac{n}{1} \right \rceil + \left \lceil \frac{n}{2} \right \rceil + \left \lceil \frac{n}{3} \right \rceil + \dots + \left \lceil \frac{n}{n} \right \rceil \] turns. (As usual, $\lceil x \rceil$ stands for the least integer not smaller than $x$. )

$100$ heaps of stones lie on a table. Two players make moves in turn. At each move, a player can remove any non-zero number of stones from the table, so that at least one heap is left untouched. The player that cannot move loses. Determine, for each initial position, which of the players, the first or the second, has a winning strategy. [i]K. Kokhas[/i] [b]EDIT.[/b] It is indeed confirmed by the sender that empty heaps are still heaps, so the third post contains the right guess of an interpretation.

A player repeatedly throwing a die is to play until their score reaches or passes a total $n$. Denote by $p(n)$ the probability of making exactly the total $n,$ and find the value of $\lim_{n \to \infty} p(n).$

Ana and Bogdan play the following turn based game: Ana starts with a pile of $n$ ($n \ge 3$) stones. At his turn each player has to split one pile. The winner is the player who can make at his turn all the piles to have at most two stones. Depending on $n$, determine which player has a winning strategy.

Two players, A and B, play the following game: they retire coins of a pile which contains initially 2006 coins. The players play removing alternatingly, in each move, from 1 to 7 coins, each player keeps the coins that retires. If a player wishes he can pass(he doesn't retire any coin), but to do that he must pay 7 coins from the ones he retired from the pile in past moves. These 7 coins are taken to a separated box and don't interfere in the game any more. The winner is the one who retires the last coin, and A starts the game. Determine which player can win for sure, it doesn't matter how the other one plays. Show the winning strategy and explain why it works.

$64$ people are in a single elimination rock-paper-scissors tournament, which consists of a $6$-round knockout bracket. Each person has a different rock-paper-scissors skill level, and in any game, the person with the higher skill level will always win. For how many players $P$ is it possible that $P$ wins the first four rounds that he plays? (A $6$-round knockout bracket is a tournament which works as follows: (a) In the first round, all 64 competitors are paired into $32$ groups, and the two people in each group play each other. The winners advance to the second round, and the losers are eliminated. (b) In the second round, the remaining $32$ players are paired into $16$ groups. Again, the winner of each group proceeds to the next round, while the loser is eliminated. (c) Each round proceeds in a similar way, eliminating half of the remaining players. After the sixth round, only one player will not have been eliminated. That player is declared the champion.) [i]In the game of rock-paper-scissors, two players each choose one of rock, paper, or scissors to play. Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock. If the players play the same thing, the match is considered a draw.[/i]

Alice has a deck of $36$ cards, $4$ suits of $9$ cards each. She picks any $18$ cards and gives the rest to Bob. Now each turn Alice picks any of her cards and lays it face-up onto the table, then Bob similarly picks any of his cards and lays it face-up onto the table. If this pair of cards has the same suit or the same value, Bob gains a point. What is the maximum number of points he can guarantee regardless of Alice’s actions? Mikhail Evdokimov

Alice and Bob play the following game: They start with non-empty piles of coins. Taking turns, with Alice playing first, each player choose a pile with an even number of coins and moves half of the coins of this pile to the other pile. The game ends if a player cannot move, in which case the other player wins. Determine all pairs $(a,b)$ of positive integers such that if initially the two piles have $a$ and $b$ coins respectively, then Bob has a winning strategy. Proposed by Dimitris Christophides, Cyprus

Thin and Fat eat a pizza of $2n$ pieces. Each piece contains a distinct amount of olives between $1$ and $2n$. Thin eats the first piece, and the two players alternately eat a piece neighbor of an eaten piece. However, neither Thin nor Fat like olives, so they will choose pieces that minimizes the total amount of olives they eat. For each arrangement $\sigma$ of the olives, let $s(\sigma)$ the minimal amount of olives that Thin can eat, considering that both play in the best way possible. Let $S(n)$ the maximum of $s(\sigma)$, considering all arrangements. $a)$ Prove that $n^2-1+\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor \le S(n) \le n^2+\lfloor \frac{n}{2} \rfloor$ $b)$ Prove that $S(n)=n^2-1+\frac{n}{2}$ for each even n.

[b]p1.[/b] Prove that no matter what digits are placed in the four empty boxes, the eight-digit number $9999\Box\Box\Box\Box$ is not a perfect square. [b]p2.[/b] Prove that the number $m/3+m^2/2+m^3/6$ is integral for all integral values of $m$. [b]p3.[/b] An elevator in a $100$ store building has only two buttons: UP and DOWN. The UP button makes the elevator go $13$ floors up, and the DOWN button makes it go $8$ floors down. Is it possible to go from the $13$th floor to the $8$th floor? [b]p4.[/b] Cut the triangle shown in the picture into three pieces and rearrange them into a rectangle. (Pieces can not overlap.) [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/4/b/ca707bf274ed54c1b22c4f65d3d0b0a5cfdc56.png[/img] [b]p5.[/b] Two players Tom and Sid play the following game. There are two piles of rocks, $7$ rocks in the first pile and $9$ rocks in the second pile. Each of the players in his turn can take either any amount of rocks from one pile or the same amount of rocks from both piles. The winner is the player who takes the last rock. Who does win in this game if Tom starts the game? [b]p6.[/b] In the next long multiplication example each letter encodes its own digit. Find these digits. $\begin{tabular}{ccccc} & & & a & b \\ * & & & c & d \\ \hline & & c & e & f \\ + & & a & b & \\ \hline & c & f & d & f \\ \end{tabular}$ PS. You should use hide for answers. Collected [url=https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c5h2760506p24143309]here[/url].

Alice and Bob play a number game. Starting with a positive integer $n$ they take turns changing the number with Alice going first. Each player may change the current number $k$ to either $k-1$ or $\lceil k/2\rceil$. The person who changes $1$ to $0$ wins. Determine all $n$ such that Alice has a winning strategy.

A box contains $100$ tickets. Each ticket has a real number written on it. There are no restrictions on the type of number except that they are all different (they can be integers, rational, positive, negative, irrational, large or small). Of course there is one ticket that has the highest number and that is the winner. The game consists of drawing a ticket at random, looking at it and deciding whether to keep it or not. If we choose to keep him, it is verified if he was the oldest, in which case we win a million pesos (if we don't win, the game is over). If we don't think it's the biggest, we can discard it and draw another one, repeating the process until we like one or we run out of tickets. Going back to choose a previously discarded ticket is prohibited. Find a game strategy that gives at least a $25\%$ chance of winning.

Two players play a game, starting with a pile of $N$ tokens. On each player’s turn, they must remove $2^n$ tokens from the pile for some nonnegative integer $n$. If a player cannot make a move, they lose. For how many $N$ between $ 1$ and $2019$ (inclusive) does the first player have a winning strategy?