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.

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

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.

A blackboard contains $2018$ instances of the digit $1$ separated by spaces. Georg and his mother play a game where they take turns filling in one of the spaces between the digits with either a $+$ or a $\times$. Georg begins, and the game ends when all spaces have been filled. Georg wins if the value of the expression is even, and his mother wins if it is odd. Which player may prepare a strategy which secures him/her victory?

Adamu and Afaafa choose, each in his turn, positive integers as coefficients of a polynomial of degree $n$. Adamu wins if the polynomial obtained has an integer root; otherwise, Afaafa wins. Afaafa plays first if $n$ is odd; otherwise Adamu plays first. Prove that: [list] [*] Adamu has a winning strategy if $n$ is odd. [*] Afaafa has a winning strategy if $n$ is even. [/list]

Chris and Michael play a game on a $5 \times 5$ board, initially containing some black and white counters as shown below: [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/8/0/42e1a64b3524a0db722c007b8d6b8eddf2d9e5.png[/img] Chris begins by removing any black counter, and sliding a white counter from an adjacent square onto the empty square. From that point on, the players take turns. Michael slides a black counter onto an adjacent empty square, and Chris does the same with white counters (no more counters are removed). If a player has no legal move, then he loses. (a) Show that, even if Chris and Michael play cooperatively, the game will come to an end. (b) Which player has a winning strategy?

The numbers $1,2,\dots,2000$ are written on the board. Two players are playing a game with alternating moves. A move consists of erasing two number $a,b$ and writing $a^b$. After some time only one number is left. The first player wins, if the numbers last digit is $2$, $7$ or $8$. If not, the second player wins. Who has a winning strategy? [I]Proposed by V. Frank[/i]

Petya and Kolya play the following game: they take turns changing one of the coefficients $a$ or $b$ of the quadratic trinomial $f = x^2 + ax + b$: Petya is on $1$, Kolya is on $1$ or $3$. Kolya wins if after the move of one of the players a trinomial is obtained that has whole roots. Is it true that Kolya can win for any initial integer odds $a$ and $b$ regardless of Petya's game? [hide=original wording]Петя и Коля играют в следующую игру: они по очереди изменяют один из коэффициентов a или b квадратного трехчлена f = x^2 + ax + b: Петя на 1, Коля- на 1 или на 3. Коля выигрывает, если после хода одного из игроков получается трехчлен, имеющий целые корни. Верно ли, что Коля может выигратьпр и любых начальных целых коэффициентах a и b независимо от игры Пети?[/hide]

Two grasshoppers sit at opposite ends of the interval $[0, 1]$. A finite number of points (greater than zero) in the interval are marked. A move is for a grasshopper to select a marked point and jump over it to the equidistant point the other side. This point must lie in the interval for the move to be allowed, but it does not have to be marked. What is the smallest $n$ such that if each grasshopper makes $n$ moves or less, then they end up with no marked points between them?

All positive integers from \( 1 \) to \( 2025 \) are written on a board. Mykhailo and Oleksii play the following game. They take turns, starting with Mykhailo, erasing one of the numbers written on the board. The game ends when exactly two numbers remain on the board. If their sum is a perfect square of an integer, Mykhailo wins; otherwise, Oleksii wins. Who wins if both players play optimally? [i]Proposed by Fedir Yudin[/i]

$n$ people are in the plane, so that the closest person is unique and each one shoot this closest person with a squirt gun. If $n$ is odd, prove that there exists at least one person that nobody shot. If $n$ is even, will there always be a person who escape? Justify that.

In an $8$-square board -like the one in the figure- there is initially one checker in each square. $ \begin{tabular}{ | l | c | c |c | c| c | c | c | r| } \hline & & & & & & & \\ \hline \end{tabular} $ A move consists of choosing two tokens and moving one of them one square to the right and the other one one square to the left. If after $4$ moves the $8$ checkers are distributed in only $2$ boxes, determine what those boxes can be and how many checkers are in each one.

Ana and Bojan are playing a game: Ana chooses positive integers $a$ and $b$ and each one gets $2016$ pieces of paper, visible to both - Ana gets the pieces with the numbers $a+1$, $a+2$, $\ldots$, $a+2016$ and Bojan gets the pieces with the numbers $b+1$, $b+2$, $\ldots$, $b+2016$ on them. Afterwards, one of them writes the number $a+b$ on the board. In every move, Ana chooses one of her pieces of paper and hands it to Bojan who chooses one of his own, writes their sum on the board and removes them both from the game. When they run out of pieces, they multiply the numbers on the board together. If the result has the same remainder than $a+b$ when divided by $2017$, Bojan wins, otherwise, Ana wins. Who has the winning strategy?

Let $m$ and $n$ be positive integers. Player $A$ has a field of $m \times n$, and player $B$ has a $1 \times n$ field (the first is the number of rows). On the first move, each player places on each square of his field white or black chip as he pleases. At each next on the move, each player can change the color of randomly chosen pieces on your field to the opposite, provided that in no row for this move will not change more than one chip (it is allowed not to change not a single chip). The moves are made in turn, player $A$ starts. Player $A$ wins if there is such a position that in the only row player $B$'s squares, from left to right, are the same as in some row of player's field $A$. Prove that player $A$ has the ability to win for any game of player $B$ if and only if $n <2m$.