Found problems: 622
Three integers are written on a blackboard. At every step one of them is erased and the sum of the other two decreased by $1$ is written instead. Is it possible to obtain the numbers $17,75,91$ if the three initial numbers were:
$\textbf{(a)}~2,2,2$;
$\textbf{(b)}~3,3,3$?
The game [i]Clobber [/i] is played by two on a strip of $2k$ squares. At the beginning there is a piece on each square, the pieces of both players stand alternatingly. At each move the player shifts one of his pieces to the neighbouring square that holds a piece of his opponent and removes his opponent’s piece from the table. The moves are made in turn, the player whose opponent cannot move anymore is the winner.
Prove that if for some $k$ the player who does not start the game has the winning strategy, then for $k + 1$ and $k + 2$ the player who makes the first move has the winning strategy.
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]
Wiebke and Stefan play the following game on a rectangular sheet of paper. They start with a rectangle with $60$ rows and $40$ columns and cut it in turns into smaller rectangles. The cuttings must be made along the gridlines, and a player in turn may cut only one smaller rectangle. By that, Stefan makes only vertical cuts, while Wiebke makes only horizontal cuts. A player who cannot make a regular move loses the game.
(a) Who has a winning strategy if Stefan makes the first move?
(b) Who has a winning strategy if Wiebke makes the first move?
Ana and Beta play a turn-based game on a $m \times n$ board. Ana begins. At the beginning, there is a stone in the lower left square and the objective is to move it to the upper right corner. A move consists of the player moving the stone to the right or up as many squares as the player wants. Find all the values of $(m, n)$ for which Ana can guarantee victory.
All the cells in a $8* 8$ board are colored white. Omar and Asaad play the following game: in the beginning Omar colors $n$ cells red, then Asaad chooses $4$ rows and $4$ columns and colors them black. Omar wins if there is at least one red cell. Find the least possible value for n such that Omar can always win regardless of Asaad's move.
Milos arranged the numbers $1$ through $49$ into the cells of a $7\times7$ board. Djordje wants to guess the arrangement of the numbers. He can choose a square covering some cells of the board and ask Milos which numbers are found inside that square. At least, how many questions does Djordje need so as to be able to guess the arrangement of the numbers?
A chess tournament took place between $2n+1$ players. Every player played every other player once, with no draws. In addition, each player had a numerical rating before the tournament began, with no two players having equal ratings. It turns out there were exactly $k$ games in which the lower-rated player beat the higher-rated player. Prove that there is some player who won no less than $n-\sqrt{2k}$ and no more than $n+\sqrt{2k}$ games.
Three friends Archie, Billie, and Charlie play a game. At the beginning of the game, each of them has a pile of $2024$ pebbles. Archie makes the first move, Billie makes the second, Charlie makes the third and they continue to make moves in the same order. In each move, the player making the move must choose a positive integer $n$ greater than any previously chosen number by any player, take $2n$ pebbles from his pile and distribute them equally to the other two players. If a player cannot make a move, the game ends and that player loses the game.
$\hspace{5px}$ Determine all the players who have a strategy such that, regardless of how the other two players play, they will not lose the game.
[i]Proposed by Ilija Jovčeski, Macedonia[/i]
There are 60 empty boxes $B_1,\ldots,B_{60}$ in a row on a table and an unlimited supply of pebbles. Given a positive integer $n$, Alice and Bob play the following game.
In the first round, Alice takes $n$ pebbles and distributes them into the 60 boxes as she wishes. Each subsequent round consists of two steps:
(a) Bob chooses an integer $k$ with $1\leq k\leq 59$ and splits the boxes into the two groups $B_1,\ldots,B_k$ and $B_{k+1},\ldots,B_{60}$.
(b) Alice picks one of these two groups, adds one pebble to each box in that group, and removes one pebble from each box in the other group.
Bob wins if, at the end of any round, some box contains no pebbles. Find the smallest $n$ such that Alice can prevent Bob from winning.
[i]Czech Republic[/i]
The expression $*3^5*3^4*3^3*3^2*3*1$ is given. Ana and Branka alternately change the signs $*$ to $+$ or $-$ (one time each turn). Can Branka, who plays second, do this so as to obtain an expression whose value is divisible by $7$?
Among the $n$ inhabitants of an island, every two are either friends or enemies. Some day, the chief of the island orders that each inhabitant (including himself) makes and wears a necklace consisting of marbles, in such a way that the necklaces of two friends have at least one marble of the same type and that the necklaces of two enemies differ at all marbles. (A necklace may also be marbleless). Show that the chief’s order can be achieved by using $\left\lfloor\frac{n^2}4\right\rfloor$ different types of stones, but not necessarily by using fewer types.
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?
Two players play a game with a pile of $N$ coins on a table. On a player's turn, if there are $n$ coins, the player can take at most $n/2+1$ coins, and must take at least one coin. The player who grabs the last coin wins. For how many values of $N$ between $1$ and $100$ (inclusive) does the first player have a winning strategy?
Oleksii and Solomiya play the following game on a square $6n\times 6n$, where $n$ is a positive integer. Oleksii in his turn places a piece of type $F$, consisting of three cells, on the board. Solomia, in turn, after each move of Oleksii, places the numbers $0, 1, 2$ in the cells of the figure that Oleksii has just placed, using each of the numbers exactly once. If two of Oleksii's pieces intersect at any moment (have a common square), he immediately loses.
Once the square is completely filled with numbers, the game stops. In this case, if the sum of the numbers in each row and each column is divisible by $3$, Solomiya wins, and otherwise Oleksii wins. Who can win this game if the figure of type $F$ is:
a) a rectangle ;
b) a corner of three cells?
[i]Proposed by Oleksii Masalitin[/i]
Petro and Vasyl play the following game. They take turns making moves and Petro goes first. In one turn, a player chooses one of the numbers from $1$ to $2024$ that wasn't selected before and writes it on the board. The first player after whose turn the product of the numbers on the board will be divisible by $2024$ loses. Who wins if every player wants to win?
[i]Proposed by Mykhailo Shtandenko[/i]
There are $k$ heaps on the table, each containing a different positive number of stones. Juri and Mari make moves alternatingly, Juri starts. On each move, the player making the move has to pick a heap and remove one or more stones in it from the table; in addition, the player is allowed to distribute any number of remaining stones from that heap in any way between other non-empty heaps. The player to remove the last stone from the table wins. For which positive integers $k$ does Juri have a winning strategy for any initial state that satisfies the conditions?
The five sides and five diagonals of a regular pentagon are drawn on a piece of paper. Two people play a game, in which they take turns to colour one of these ten line segments. The first player colours line segments blue, while the second player colours line segments red. A player cannot colour a line segment that has already been coloured. A player wins if they are the first to create a triangle in their own colour, whose three vertices are also vertices of the regular pentagon. The game is declared a draw if all ten line segments have been coloured without a player winning. Determine whether the first player, the second player, or neither player can force a win.
The numbers $1, 2,. . . , 33$ are written on the board . A student performs the following procedure:
choose two numbers from those written on the board so that one of them is a multiple of the other number; after the election he deletes the two numbers and writes on the board their number. The student repeats the procedure so many times until only numbers without multiples remain on the board. Determine how many numbers they remain on the board in the situation where the student can no longer repeat the procedure.
A game is played on an $m \times n$ chessboard. At the beginning, there is a coin on one of the squares. Two players take turns to move the coin to an adjacent square (horizontally or vertically). The coin may never be moved to a square that has been occupied before. If a player cannot move any more, he loses. Prove:
[list]
[*] If the size (number of squares) of the board is even, then the player to move first has a winning strategy, regardless of the initial position.
[*] If the size of the board is odd, then the player to move first has a winning strategy if and only if the coin is initially placed on a square whose colour is not the same as the colour of the corners.
[/list]
On a square of a chessboard there is a pawn . Two players take turns to move it to another square, subject to the rule that , at each move the distance moved is strictly greater than that of the previous move. A player loses when unable to make a move on his turn. Who wins if the players always choose the best strategy? (The pawn is always placed in the centre of its square. )
( F . L . Nazarov)
Consider an equilateral triangle with every side divided by $n$ points into $n+1$ equal parts. We put a marker on every of the $3n$ division points. We draw lines parallel to the sides of the triangle through the division points, and this way divide the triangle into $(n+1)^2$ smaller ones.
Consider the following game: if there is a small triangle with exactly one vertex unoccupied, we put a marker on it and simultaneously take markers from the two its occupied vertices. We repeat this operation as long as it is possible.
(a) If $n\equiv1\pmod3$, show that we cannot manage that only one marker remains.
(b) If $n\equiv0$ or $n\equiv2\pmod3$, prove that we can finish the game leaving exactly one marker on the triangle.
We have a square of side $1$ and a number $\ell$ such that $0 <\ell <\sqrt2$. Two players $A$ and $B$, in turn, draw in the square an open segment (without its two ends) of length $\ell $, starts A. Each segment after the first cannot have points in common with the previously drawn segments. He loses the player who cannot make his play. Determine if either player has a winning strategy.
A hunter and an invisible rabbit play a game in the Euclidean plane. The rabbit's starting point, $A_0,$ and the hunter's starting point, $B_0$ are the same. After $n-1$ rounds of the game, the rabbit is at point $A_{n-1}$ and the hunter is at point $B_{n-1}.$ In the $n^{\text{th}}$ round of the game, three things occur in order:
[list=i]
[*]The rabbit moves invisibly to a point $A_n$ such that the distance between $A_{n-1}$ and $A_n$ is exactly $1.$
[*]A tracking device reports a point $P_n$ to the hunter. The only guarantee provided by the tracking device to the hunter is that the distance between $P_n$ and $A_n$ is at most $1.$
[*]The hunter moves visibly to a point $B_n$ such that the distance between $B_{n-1}$ and $B_n$ is exactly $1.$
[/list]
Is it always possible, no matter how the rabbit moves, and no matter what points are reported by the tracking device, for the hunter to choose her moves so that after $10^9$ rounds, she can ensure that the distance between her and the rabbit is at most $100?$
[i]Proposed by Gerhard Woeginger, Austria[/i]
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.