Found problems: 622
Three players $A, B$ and $C$ take turns taking stones from a pile of $N$ stones. They play in the order $A$, $B$, $C$, $A$, $B$, $C$, $....$, $A$ starts the game and the one who takes the last stone loses. Players $A$ and $C$ They form a team against $B$, they agree on a strategy joint. $B$ can take $1, 2, 3, 4$ or $5$ stones on each move, while that $A$ and $C$ can each draw $1, 2$ or $3$ stones in each turn. Determine for which values of $N$ have winning strategies $A$ and $C$ , and for what values the winning strategy is $B$'s.
Lisa writes a positive whole number in the decimal system on the blackboard and now makes in each turn the following:
The last digit is deleted from the number on the board and then the remaining shorter number (or 0 if the number was one digit) becomes four times the number deleted number added. The number on the board is now replaced by the result of this calculation.
Lisa repeats this until she gets a number for the first time was on the board.
(a) Show that the sequence of moves always ends.
(b) If Lisa begins with the number $53^{2022} - 1$, what is the last number on the board?
Example: If Lisa starts with the number $2022$, she gets $202 + 4\cdot 2 = 210$ in the first move and overall the result $$2022 \to 210 \to 21 \to 6 \to 24 \to 18 \to 33 \to 15 \to 21$$.
Since Lisa gets $21$ for the second time, the turn order ends.
[i](Stephan Pfannerer)[/i]
A game is played with two heaps of $p$ and $q$ stones. Two players alternate playing, with $A$ starting. A player in turn takes away one heap and divides the other heap into two smaller ones. A player who cannot perform a legal move loses the game. For which values of $p$ and $q$ can $A$ force a victory?
Players $A$ and $B$ play a game with $N \geq 2012$ coins and $2012$ boxes arranged around a circle. Initially $A$ distributes the coins among the boxes so that there is at least $1$ coin in each box. Then the two of them make moves in the order $B,A,B,A,\ldots $ by the following rules:
[b](a)[/b] On every move of his $B$ passes $1$ coin from every box to an adjacent box.
[b](b)[/b] On every move of hers $A$ chooses several coins that were [i]not[/i] involved in $B$'s previous move and are in different boxes. She passes every coin to an adjacent box.
Player $A$'s goal is to ensure at least $1$ coin in each box after every move of hers, regardless of how $B$ plays and how many moves are made. Find the least $N$ that enables her to succeed.
Yamin and Tamim are playing a game with subsets of $\{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$ where $n \geq 3$.
[list]
[*] Tamim starts the game with the empty set.
[*] On Yamin's turn, he adds a proper non-empty subset of $\{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$ to his collection $F$ of blocked sets.
[*] On Tamim's turn, he adds or removes a positive integer less than or equal to $n$ to or from their set but Tamim can never add or remove an element so that his set becomes one of the blocked sets in $F$.
[/list]
Tamim wins if he can make his set to be $\{1, 2, \ldots, n\}$. Yamin wins if he can stop Tamim from doing so. Yamin goes first and they alternate making their moves. Does Tamim have a winning strategy?
[i]Proposed by Ahmed Ittihad Hasib[/i]
Six free cells are given in a row. Players $A$ and $B$ alternately write digits from $0$ to $9$ in empty cells, with $A$ starting. When all the cells are filled, one considers the obtained six-digit number $z$. Player $B$ wins if $z$ is divisible by a given natural number $n$, and loses otherwise. For which values of $n$ not exceeding $20$ can $B$ win independently of his opponent’s moves?
Two players play a game as follows. The first player chooses two non-zero integers A and B. The second player forms a quadratic with A, B and 1998 as coefficients (in any order). The first player wins iff the equation has two distinct rational roots. Show that the first player can always win.
Two players play a game as follows: there $n > 1$ rounds and $d \geq 1$ is fixed. In the first round A picks a positive integer $m_1$, then B picks a positive integer $n_1 \not = m_1$. In round $k$ (for $k = 2, \ldots , n$), A picks an integer $m_k$ such that $m_{k-1} < m_k \leq m_{k-1} + d$. Then B picks an integer $n_k$ such that $n_{k-1} < n_k \leq n_{k-1} + d$. A gets $\gcd(m_k,n_{k-1})$ points and B gets $\gcd(m_k,n_k)$ points. After $n$ rounds, A wins if he has at least as many points as B, otherwise he loses.
For each $(n, d)$ which player has a winning strategy?
In a basketball tournament any two of the $n$ teams $S_1,S_2,...,S_n$ play one match (no draws).
Denote by $v_i$ and $p_i$ the number of victories and defeats of team $S_i$ ($i = 1,2,...,n$), respectively.
Prove that $v^2_1 +v^2_2 +...+v^2_n = p^2_1 +p^2_2 +...+p^2_n$
On the table there are $50$ stacks of coins that have $1,2,3,…,50$ coins respectively. Ana and Beto play the following game in turns:
First, Ana chooses one of the $50$ piles on the table, and Beto decides if that pile is for Ana or for him.
Then, Beto chooses one of the $49$ remaining piles on the table, and Ana decides if that pile is for her or for Beto.
They continue playing alternately in this way until one of the players has $25$ batteries.
When that happens, the other player takes all the remaining stacks on the table and whoever has the most coins wins.
Determine which of the two players has a winning strategy.
A hunter and an invisible rabbit play a game on an infinite square grid. First the hunter fixes a colouring of the cells with finitely many colours. The rabbit then secretly chooses a cell to start in. Every minute, the rabbit reports the colour of its current cell to the hunter, and then secretly moves to an adjacent cell that it has not visited before (two cells are adjacent if they share an edge). The hunter wins if after some finite time either:[list][*]the rabbit cannot move; or
[*]the hunter can determine the cell in which the rabbit started.[/list]Decide whether there exists a winning strategy for the hunter.
[i]Proposed by Aron Thomas[/i]
Alice and Bob are playing the following game:
They take turns writing on the board natural numbers not exceeding $2018$ (to write the number twice is forbidden).
Alice begins. A player wins if after his or her move there appear three numbers on the board which are in arithmetic progression.
Which player has a winning strategy?
The Y2K Game is played on a $1 \times 2000$ grid as follows. Two players in turn write either an S or an O in an empty square. The first player who produces three consecutive boxes that spell SOS wins. If all boxes are filled without producing SOS then the game is a draw. Prove that the second player has a winning strategy.
Two players play the following game: Let $n$ be a fixed integer greater than $1$. Starting from number $k=2$, each player has two possible moves: either replace the number $k$ by $k+1$ or by $2k$. The player who is forced to write a number greater than $n$ loses the game. Which player has a winning strategy for which $n$?
A lottery ticket has $50$ cells into which one must put a permutation of $1, 2, 3, ... , 50$. Any ticket with at least one cell matching the winning permutation wins a prize. How many tickets are needed to be sure of winning a prize?
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 $x$. )
Ana and Beto play against each other. Initially, Ana chooses a non-negative integer $N$ and announces it to Beto. Next Beto writes a succession of $2016$ numbers, $1008$ of them equal to $1$ and $1008$ of them equal to $-1$. Once this is done, Ana must split the succession into several blocks of consecutive terms (each term belonging to exactly one block), and calculate the sum of the numbers of each block. Finally, add the squares of the calculated numbers. If this sum is equal to $N$, Ana wins. If not, Beto wins. Determine all values of $N$ for which Ana can ensure victory, no matter how Beto plays.
Two players in turn put two or three coins into their own hats (before the game starts, the hats are empty). Each time, after both players made five moves, they exchange hats.The player wins, if after his move his hat contains one hundred or more coins. Which player has a winning strategy?
On a blackboard, there are $17$ integers not divisible by $17$. Alice and Bob play a game.
Alice starts and they alternately play the following moves:
$\bullet$ Alice chooses a number $a$ on the blackboard and replaces it with $a^2$
$\bullet$ Bob chooses a number $b$ on the blackboard and replaces it with $b^3$.
Alice wins if the sum of the numbers on the blackboard is a multiple of $17$ after a finite number of steps.
Prove that Alice has a winning strategy.
(Daniel Holmes)
A row of 2021 balls is given. Pasha and Vova play a game, taking turns to perform moves; Pasha begins. On each turn a boy should paint a non-painted ball in one of the three available colors: red, yellow, or green (initially all balls are non-painted). When all the balls are colored, Pasha wins, if there are three consecutive balls of different colors; otherwise Vova wins. Who has a winning strategy?
Let $n$ be a positive integer. A \emph{pseudo-Gangnam Style} is a dance competition between players $A$ and $B$. At time $0$, both players face to the north. For every $k\ge 1$, at time $2k-1$, player $A$ can either choose to stay stationary, or turn $90^{\circ}$ clockwise, and player $B$ is forced to follow him; at time $2k$, player $B$ can either choose to stay stationary, or turn $90^{\circ}$ clockwise, and player $A$ is forced to follow him.
After time $n$, the music stops and the competition is over. If the final position of both players is north or east, $A$ wins. If the final position of both players is south or west, $B$ wins. Determine who has a winning strategy when:
(a) $n=2013^{2012}$
(b) $n=2013^{2013}$
Ward and Gabrielle are playing a game on a large sheet of paper. At the start of the game, there are $999$ ones on the sheet of paper. Ward and Gabrielle each take turns alternatingly, and Ward has the first turn.
During their turn, a player must pick two numbers a and b on the sheet such that $gcd(a, b) = 1$, erase these numbers from the sheet, and write the number $a + b$ on the sheet. The first player who is not able to do so, loses.
Determine which player can always win this game.
Two players, \(A\) (first player) and \(B\), take alternate turns in playing a game using 2016 chips as follows: [i]the player whose turn it is, must remove \(s\) chips from the remaining pile of chips, where \(s \in \{ 2,4,5 \}\)[/i]. No one can skip a turn. The player who at some point is unable to make a move (cannot remove chips from the pile) loses the game. Who among the two players can force a win on this game?
Jesse and Tjeerd are playing a game. Jesse has access to $n\ge 2$ stones. There are two boxes: in the black box there is room for half of the stones (rounded down) and in the white box there is room for half of the stones (rounded up). Jesse and Tjeerd take turns, with Jesse starting. Jesse grabs in his turn, always one new stone, writes a positive real number on the stone and places put him in one of the boxes that isn't full yet. Tjeerd sees all these numbers on the stones in the boxes and on his turn may move any stone from one box to the other box if it is not yet full, but he may also choose to do nothing. The game stops when both boxes are full. If then the total value of the stones in the black box is greater than the total value of the stones in the white box, Jesse wins; otherwise win Tjeerd. For every $n \ge 2$, determine who can definitely win (and give a corresponding winning strategy).
Alice and Bob are playing the following game: They have an $8\times8$ chessboard. Initially, all grids are white. Each round, Alice chooses a white grid and paints it black. Then Bob chooses one of the neighbors of that grid and paints it black. Or he does nothing. After that, Alice may decide to continue the game or not. The goal of Alice is to maximize the number of connected components of black grids, on the other hand, Bob wants to minimize that number. If both of them are extremely smart, how many connected components will be in the end of the game?