Found problems: 622
Kvant 2020, M2601
Gleb picked positive integers $N$ and $a$ ($a < N$). He wrote the number $a$ on a blackboard. Then each turn he did the following: he took the last number on the blackboard, divided the number $N$ by this last number with remainder and wrote the remainder onto the board. When he wrote the number $0$ onto the board, he stopped. Could he pick $N$ and $a$ such that the sum of the numbers on the blackboard would become greater than $100N$ ?
Ivan Mitrofanov
2019 ELMO Shortlist, C2
Adithya and Bill are playing a game on a connected graph with $n > 2$ vertices, two of which are labeled $A$ and $B$, so that $A$ and $B$ are distinct and non-adjacent and known to both players. Adithya starts on vertex $A$ and Bill starts on $B$. Each turn, both players move simultaneously: Bill moves to an adjacent vertex, while Adithya may either move to an adjacent vertex or stay at his current vertex. Adithya loses if he is on the same vertex as Bill, and wins if he reaches $B$ alone. Adithya cannot see where Bill is, but Bill can see where Adithya is. Given that Adithya has a winning strategy, what is the maximum possible number of edges the graph may have? (Your answer may be in terms of $n$.)
[i]Proposed by Steven Liu[/i]
2006 Federal Math Competition of S&M, Problem 4
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?
2008 May Olympiad, 3
On a blackboard are written all the integers from $1$ to $2008$ inclusive. Two numbers are deleted and their difference is written. For example, if you erase $5$ and $241$, you write $236$. This continues, erasing two numbers and writing their difference, until only one number remains. Determine if the number left at the end can be $2008$. What about $2007$? In each case, if the answer is affirmative, indicate a sequence with that final number, and if it is negative, explain why.
Ukrainian TYM Qualifying - geometry, 2019.17
$n$ points are marked on the board points that are vertices of the regular $n$ -gon. One of the points is a chip. Two players take turns moving it to the other marked point and at the same time draw a segment that connects them. If two points already connected by a segment, such a move is prohibited. A player who can't make a move, lose. Which of the players can guarantee victory?
2005 Chile National Olympiad, 6
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.
2009 Swedish Mathematical Competition, 6
On a table lie $289$ coins that form a square array $17 \times 17$. All coins are facing with the crown up. In one move, it is possible to reverse any five coins lying in a row: vertical, horizontal or diagonal. Is it possible that after a number of such moves, all the coins to be arranged with tails up?
2015 Argentina National Olympiad, 6
Let $S$ the set of natural numbers from $1$ up to $1001$ , $S=\{1,2,...,1001\}$. Lisandro thinks of a number $N$ of $S$ , and Carla has to find out that number with the following procedure. She gives Lisandro a list of subsets of $S$,
Lisandro reads it and tells Carla how many subsets of her list contain $N$ . If Carla wishes, she can repeat the same thing with a second list, and then with a third, but no more than $3$ are allowed. What is the smallest total number of subsets that allow Carla to find $N$ for sure?
2013 Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 3
The number $1234567890$ is written on the blackboard. Two players $A$ and $B$ play the following game taking alternate moves. In one move, a player erases the number which is written on the blackboard, say, $m$, subtracts from $m$ any positive integer not exceeding the sum of the digits of $m$ and writes the obtained result instead of $m$. The first player who reduces the number written on the blackboard to $0$ wins. Determine which of the players has the winning strategy if the player $A$ makes the first move.
2021 Brazil Team Selection Test, 1
Players $A$ and $B$ play a game on a blackboard that initially contains 2020 copies of the number 1 . In every round, player $A$ erases two numbers $x$ and $y$ from the blackboard, and then player $B$ writes one of the numbers $x+y$ and $|x-y|$ on the blackboard. The game terminates as soon as, at the end of some round, one of the following holds:
$(1)$ one of the numbers on the blackboard is larger than the sum of all other numbers;
$(2)$ there are only zeros on the blackboard.
Player $B$ has to pay to player $A$ an amount in reais equivalent to the quantity of numbers left on the blackboard after the game ends. Show that player $A$ can earn at least 8 reais regardless of the moves taken by $B$
Ps.: Easier version of [url = https://artofproblemsolving.com/community/c6h2625868p22698110]ISL 2020 C8[/url]
2019 Tournament Of Towns, 1
The King gives the following task to his two wizards. The First Wizard should choose $7$ distinct positive integers with total sum $100$ and secretly submit them to the King. To the Second Wizard he should tell only the fourth largest number. The Second Wizard must figure out all the chosen numbers. Can the wizards succeed for sure? The wizards cannot discuss their strategy beforehand.
(Mikhail Evdokimov)
2020 IMEO, Problem 4
Anna and Ben are playing with a permutation $p$ of length $2020$, initially $p_i = 2021 - i$ for $1\le i \le 2020$. Anna has power $A$, and Ben has power $B$. Players are moving in turns, with Anna moving first.
In his turn player with power $P$ can choose any $P$ elements of the permutation and rearrange them in the way he/she wants.
Ben wants to sort the permutation, and Anna wants to not let this happen. Determine if Ben can make sure that the permutation will be sorted (of form $p_i = i$ for $1\le i \le 2020$) in finitely many turns, if
a) $A = 1000, B = 1000$
b) $A = 1000, B = 1001$
c) $A = 1000, B = 1002$
[i]Anton Trygub[/i]
2022 Macedonian Mathematical Olympiad, Problem 4
Sofia and Viktor are playing the following game on a $2022 \times 2022$ board:
- Firstly, Sofia covers the table completely by dominoes, no two are overlapping and all are inside the table;
- Then Viktor without seeing the table, chooses a positive integer $n$;
- After that Viktor looks at the table covered with dominoes, chooses and fixes $n$ of them;
- Finally, Sofia removes the remaining dominoes that aren't fixed and tries to recover the table with dominoes differently from before.
If she achieves that, she wins, otherwise Viktor wins. What is the minimum number $n$ for which Viktor can always win, no matter the starting covering of dominoes.
[i]Proposed by Viktor Simjanoski[/i]
2011 Tournament of Towns, 1
There are $n$ coins in a row. Two players take turns picking a coin and flipping it. The location of the heads and tails should not repeat. Loses the one who can not make a move. Which of player can always win, no matter how his opponent plays?
Russian TST 2018, P1
Let $ p \geq 2$ be a prime number. Eduardo and Fernando play the following game making moves alternately: in each move, the current player chooses an index $i$ in the set $\{0,1,2,\ldots, p-1 \}$ that was not chosen before by either of the two players and then chooses an element $a_i$ from the set $\{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9\}$. Eduardo has the first move. The game ends after all the indices have been chosen .Then the following number is computed:
$$M=a_0+a_110+a_210^2+\cdots+a_{p-1}10^{p-1}= \sum_{i=0}^{p-1}a_i.10^i$$.
The goal of Eduardo is to make $M$ divisible by $p$, and the goal of Fernando is to prevent this.
Prove that Eduardo has a winning strategy.
[i]Proposed by Amine Natik, Morocco[/i]
2011 Costa Rica - Final Round, 3
The archipelago Barrantes - $n$ is a group of islands connected by bridges as follows: there are a main island (Humberto), in the first step I place an island below Humberto and one above from Humberto and I connect these 2 islands to Humberto. I put $2$ islands to the left of these $2$ new islands and I connect them with a bridge to the island that they have on their right. In the second step I take the last $2$ islands and I apply the same process that I applied to Humberto. In the third step I apply the same process to the $4$ new islands. We repeat this step n times we reflect the archipelago that we have on a vertical line to the right of Humberto. We connect Humberto with his reflection and so we have the archipelago Barrantes -$n$. However, the archipelago Barrantes -$n$ exists on a small planet cylindrical, so that the islands to the left of the archipelago are in fact the islands that are connected to the islands on the right. The figure shows the Barrantes archipelago -$2$, The islands at the edges are still numbered to show how the archipelago connects around the cylindrical world, the island numbered $1$ on the left is the same as the island numbered $1$ on the right.
[img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/e/c/803d95ce742c2739729fdb4d74af59d4d0652f.png[/img]
One day two bands of pirates arrive at the archipelago Barrantes - $n$: The pirates Black Beard and the Straw Hat Pirates. Blackbeard proposes a game to Straw Hat: The first player conquers an island, the next player must conquer an island connected to the island that was conquered in the previous turn (clearly not conquered on a previous shift). The one who cannot conquer any island in his turn loses. Straw Hat decides to give the first turn to Blackbeard. Prove that Straw Hat has a winning strategy for every $n$.
2014 Contests, 2
Ahmad and Salem play the following game. Ahmad writes two integers (not necessarily different) on a board. Salem writes their sum and product. Ahmad does the same thing: he writes the sum and product of the two numbers which Salem has just written.
They continue in this manner, not stopping unless the two players write the same two numbers one after the other (for then they are stuck!). The order of the two numbers which each player writes is not important.
Thus if Ahmad starts by writing $3$ and $-2$, the first five moves (or steps) are as shown:
(a) Step 1 (Ahmad) $3$ and $-2$
(b) Step 2 (Salem) $1$ and $-6$
(c) Step 3 (Ahmad) $-5$ and $-6$
(d) Step 4 (Salem) $-11$ and $30$
(e) Step 5 (Ahmad) $19$ and $-330$
(i) Describe all pairs of numbers that Ahmad could write, and ensure that Salem must write the same numbers, and so the game stops at step 2.
(ii) What pair of integers should Ahmad write so that the game finishes at step 4?
(iii) Describe all pairs of integers which Ahmad could write at step 1, so that the game will finish after finitely many steps.
(iv) Ahmad and Salem decide to change the game. The first player writes three numbers on the board, $u, v$ and $w$. The second player then writes the three numbers $u + v + w,uv + vw + wu$ and $uvw$, and they proceed as before, taking turns, and using this new rule describing how to work out the next three numbers. If Ahmad goes first, determine all collections of three numbers which he can write down, ensuring that Salem has to write the same three numbers at the next step.
2020 Dutch IMO TST, 2
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.
2011 All-Russian Olympiad, 2
There are more than $n^2$ stones on the table. Peter and Vasya play a game, Peter starts. Each turn, a player can take any prime number less than $n$ stones, or any multiple of $n$ stones, or $1$ stone. Prove that Peter always can take the last stone (regardless of Vasya's strategy).
[i]S Berlov[/i]
1999 USAMO, 5
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.
2024 Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik, 1
Arthur and Renate play a game on a $7 \times 7$ board. Arthur has two red tiles, initially placed on the cells in the bottom left and the upper right corner. Renate has two black tiles, initially placed on the cells in the bottom right and the upper left corner. In a move, a player can choose one of his two tiles and move them to a horizontally or vertically adjacent cell. The players alternate, with Arthur beginning. Arthur wins when both of his tiles are in horizontally or vertically adjacent cells after some number of moves. Can Renate prevent him from winning?
1995 Bundeswettbewerb Mathematik, 1
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?
2022 239 Open Mathematical Olympiad, 1
Egor and Igor take turns (Igor starts) replacing the coefficients of the polynomial \[a_{99}x^{99} + \cdots + a_1x + a_0\]with non-zero integers. Egor wants the polynomial to have as many different integer roots as possible. What is the largest number of roots he can always achieve?
2017 CHMMC (Fall), 3
You are playing a game called "Hovse."
Initially you have the number $0$ on a blackboard.
If at any moment the number $x$ is written on the board, you can either:
$\bullet$ replace $x$ with $3x + 1$
$\bullet$ replace $x$ with $9x + 1$
$\bullet$ replace $x$ with $27x + 3$
$\bullet$ or replace $x$ with $\left \lfloor \frac{x}{3} \right \rfloor $.
However, you are not allowed to write a number greater than $2017$ on the board. How many positive numbers can you make with the game of "Hovse?"
1998 Tournament Of Towns, 4
A traveller visited a village whose inhabitants either always tell the truth or always lie. The villagers stood in a circle facing the centre of the circle, and each villager announced whether the person standing to his right is a truth-teller. On the basis of this information, the traveller was able to determine what fraction of the villagers were liars. What was this fraction?
(B, Frenkin)