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]

There is a token in one of the nodes of a hexagon with side $n$, divided into regular triangles (see figure). Two players take turns moving it to one of the neighboring nodes, and it is forbidden to go to a node that the token has already visited. The one who loses who can't make a move. Who wins with the right game? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/2/f/18314fe7f9f4cd8e783037a8e5642e17f4e1be.png[/img]

Three persons $A,B,C$, are playing the following game: A $k$-element subset of the set $\{1, . . . , 1986\}$ is randomly chosen, with an equal probability of each choice, where $k$ is a fixed positive integer less than or equal to $1986$. The winner is $A,B$ or $C$, respectively, if the sum of the chosen numbers leaves a remainder of $0, 1$, or $2$ when divided by $3$. For what values of $k$ is this game a fair one? (A game is fair if the three outcomes are equally probable.)

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 $x$. )

Alice and Brian are playing a game on the real line. To start the game, Alice places a checker on a number $x$ where $0 < x < 1$. In each move, Brian chooses a positive number $d$. Alice must move the checker to either $x + d$ or $x - d$. If it lands on $0$ or $1$, Brian wins. Otherwise the game proceeds to the next move. For which values of $x$ does Brian have a strategy which allows him to win the game in a finite number of moves?

On every square of a chessboard, there are as many grains as shown on the picture. Starting from an arbitrary square, a knight starts a journey over the chessboard. After every move it eats up all the grains from the square it arrived to, but when it leaves, the same number of grains is put back on the square. After some time the knight returns to its initial square. Prove that the total number of grains the knight has eaten up during the journey is divisible by $3$. [img]https://services.artofproblemsolving.com/download.php?id=YXR0YWNobWVudHMvZC8xL2IwOGZlODYxMDg1MWMwMWUwMjFkOGJkMWQ2MjA4YzIzZmQ5YTc5LnBuZw==&rn=U2NyZWVuIFNob3QgMjAyMS0wNC0yOCBhdCA3LjIzLjA3IEFNLnBuZw==[/img]

On the table are $300$ coins. Petya, Vasya and Tolya play the next game. They go in turn in the following order: Petya, Vasya, Tolya, Petya. Vasya, Tolya, etc. In one move, Petya can take $1, 2, 3$, or $4$ coins from the table, Vasya, $1$ or $2$ coins, and Tolya, too, $1$ or $2$ coins. Can Vasya and Tolya agree so that, as if Petya were playing, one of them two will take the last coin off the table?

A game of Jai Alai has eight players and starts with players $P_1$ and $P_2$ on court and the other players $P_3, P_4, P_5, P_6, P_7, P_8$ waiting in a queue. After each point is played, the loser goes to the end of the queue; the winner adds $1$ point to his score and stays on the court; and the player at the head of the queue comes on to contest the next point. Play continues until someone has scored $7$ points. At that moment, we observe that a total of $37$ points have been scored by all eight players. Determine who has won and justify your answer.

In the middle cell of the $1 \times 2005$ strip there is a chip. Two players each queues move it: first, the first player moves the piece one cell in any direction, then the second one moves it $2$ cells, the $1$st - by $4$ cells, the 2nd by $8$, etc. (the $k$-th shift occurs by $2^{k-1}$ cells). That, whoever cannot make another move loses. Who can win regardless of the opponent's play?

Two players take turns alternatively and remove a number from $1,2,\dots,1000$. Players can not remove a number that differ with a number already removed by $1$ also they can not remove a number such that it sums up with another removed number to $1001$. The player who can not move loses. Determine the winner.

Stekel and Prick play a game on an $ m \times n$ board, where $m$ and $n$ are positive are integers. They alternate turns, with Stekel starting. Spine bets on his turn, he always takes a pawn on a square where there is no pawn yet. Prick does his turn the same, but his pawn must always come into a square adjacent to the square that Spike just placed a pawn in on his previous turn. Prick wins like the whole board is full of pawns. Spike wins if Prik can no longer move a pawn on his turn, while there is still at least one empty square on the board. Determine for all pairs $(m, n)$ who has a winning strategy.

Three gamblers play against each other for money. They each start by placing a pile of one-krone coins on the table, and from this point on the total number of coins on the table does not change. The ratio between the number of coins they start with is $6 : 5 : 4$. At the end of the game, the ratio of the number of coins they have is $7 : 6 : 5$ in some order. At the end of the game, one of the gamblers has three coins more than at the beginning. How many coins does this gambler have at the end?

In a one-player game, you have three cards. At the beginning, a nonnegative integer is written on each of the cards, and the sum of these three integers is $2006$. At each step, you can select two of the three chards, subtract $1$ from the integer written on each of these two cards - as long as the resulting integers are still nonnegative -, and add $1$ to the integer written on the third card. You play this game until you can’t perform a step anymore because two of the cards have $0$’s written on them. Assume that, at this moment, the third card has a $1$ written on it. Prove that I can tell you which card contains the $1$ without knowing how exactly you proceeded in your game, but only knowing the starting configuration (i. e., the numbers written on the cards at the beginning of the game) and the fact that at the end, you were left with two $0$’s and a $1$.

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)

There are $64$ booths around a circular table and on each one there is a chip. The chips and the corresponding booths are numbered $1$ to $64$ in this order. At the center of the table there are $1996$ light bulbs which are all turned off. Every minute the chips move simultaneously in a circular way (following the numbering sense) as follows: chip $1$ moves one booth, chip $2$ moves two booths, etc., so that more than one chip can be in the same booth. At any minute, for each chip sharing a booth with chip $1$ a bulb is lit. Where is chip $1$ on the first minute in which all bulbs are lit?