The following operation is allowed on a finite graph: Choose an arbitrary cycle of length 4 (if there is any), choose an arbitrary edge in that cycle, and delete it from the graph. For a fixed integer ${n\ge 4}$, find the least number of edges of a graph that can be obtained by repeated applications of this operation from the complete graph on $n$ vertices (where each pair of vertices are joined by an edge). [i]Proposed by Norman Do, Australia[/i]

Let it \(k\) be a fixed positive integer. Alberto and Beralto play the following game: Given an initial number \(N_0\) and starting with Alberto, they alternately do the following operation: change the number \(n\) for a number \(m\) such that \(m < n\) and \(m\) and \(n\) differ, in its base-2 representation, in exactly \(l\) consecutive digits for some \(l\) such that \(1 \leq l \leq k\). If someone can't play, he loses. We say a non-negative integer \(t\) is a [i]winner[/i] number when the gamer who receives the number \(t\) has a winning strategy, that is, he can choose the next numbers in order to guarrantee his own victory, regardless the options of the other player. Else, we call it [i]loser[/i]. Prove that, for every positive integer \(N\), the total of non-negative loser integers lesser than \(2^N\) is \(2^{N-\lfloor \frac{log(min\{N,k\})}{log 2} \rfloor}\)

There are $14$ players participating at a chess tournament, each playing one game with every other player. After the end of the tournament, the players were ranked in descending order based on their points. The sum of the points of the first three players is equal with the sum of the points of the last nine players. What is the highest possible number of draws in the tournament.(For a victory the player gets $1$ point, for a loss $0$ points, in a draw both players get $0,5$ points.)

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]

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 $2023$ 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 $2023$ loses. Who wins if every player wants to win? [i]Proposed by Mykhailo Shtandenko[/i]

Five identical empty buckets of $2$-liter capacity stand at the vertices of a regular pentagon. Cinderella and her wicked Stepmother go through a sequence of rounds: At the beginning of every round, the Stepmother takes one liter of water from the nearby river and distributes it arbitrarily over the five buckets. Then Cinderella chooses a pair of neighbouring buckets, empties them to the river and puts them back. Then the next round begins. The Stepmother goal's is to make one of these buckets overflow. Cinderella's goal is to prevent this. Can the wicked Stepmother enforce a bucket overflow? [i]Proposed by Gerhard Woeginger, Netherlands[/i]

Petya and Vasya are playing on an $100\times 100$ board. Initially, all the cells of the board are white. With each of his moves, Petya paints one or more white cells standing on the same diagonal in black. With each of his moves, Vasya paints one or more white cells standing on the same column in black. Petya makes the first move. The one who can't make a move loses. Who has a winning strategy? [i]Proposed by M. Didin[/i]

There is a piece on each square of the solitaire board shown except for the central square. A move can be made when there are three adjacent squares in a horizontal or vertical line with two adjacent squares occupied and the third square vacant. The move is to remove the two pieces from the occupied squares and to place a piece on the third square. (One can regard one of the pieces as hopping over the other and taking it.) Is it possible to end up with a single piece on the board, on the square marked $X$?

Initially, the number $10$ is written on the board. In each subsequent moves, you can either (i) erase the number $1$ and replace it with a $10$, or (ii) erase the number $10$ and replace it with a $1$ and a $25$ or (iii) erase a $25$ and replace it with two $10$. After sometime, you notice that there are exactly one hundred copies of $1$ on the board. What is the least possible sum of all the numbers on the board at that moment?

A journalist wants to report on the island of scoundrels and knights, where all inhabitants are either scoundrels (and they always lie) or knights (and they always tell the truth). The journalist interviews each inhabitant exactly once and gets the following answers: $A_1$: On this island there is at least one scoundrel, $A_2$: On this island there are at least two scoundrels, $...$ $A_{n-1}$: On this island there are at least $n-1$ scoundrels, $A_n$: On this island everybody is a scoundrel. Can the journalist decide whether there are more scoundrels or more knights?

Let $n \geq 2$ be a natural number. We consider a $(2n - 1) \times (2n - 1)$ table.Ana and Bob play the following game: starting with Ana, the two of them alternately color the vertices of the unit squares, Ana with red and Bob with blue, in $2n^2$ rounds. Then, starting with Ana, each one forms a vector with origin at a red point and ending at a blue point, resulting in $2n^2$ vectors with distinct origins and endpoints. If the sum of these vectors is zero, Ana wins. Otherwise, Bob wins. Show that Bob has a winning strategy.

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 $7$?

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 $x$. )

Three numbered tiles are arranged in a tray as shown: [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/d/0/d449364f92b7fae971fd348a82bafd25aa8ea1.jpg[/img] Show that we cannot interchange the $1$ and the $3$ by a sequence of moves where we slide a tile to the adjacent vacant space.

Josie and Ross are playing a game on a $20 \times 20$ chessboard. Initially the chessboard is empty. The two players alternately take turns, with Josie going first. On Josie’s turn, she selects any two different empty cells, and places one white stone in each of them. On Ross’ turn, he chooses any one white stone currently on the board, and replaces it with a black stone. If at any time there are $ 8$ consecutive cells in a line (horizontally or vertically) all of which contain a white stone, Josie wins. Is it possible that Ross can stop Josie winning - regardless of how Josie plays?

Mari and Yuri play the next play. At first, there are two piles on the table, with $m$ and $n$ candies, respectively. At each turn, players eats one pile of candy from the table and distribute another pile of candy into two non-empty parts ,. Everything is done in turn and wins the player who can no longer share the pile (when there is only one candy left). Which player will win if both use the optimal strategy and Mari makes the first move?

Peter has three accounts in a bank, each with an integral number of dollars. He is only allowed to transfer money from one account to another so that the amount of money in the latter is doubled. Prove that Peter can always transfer all his money into two accounts. Can Peter always transfer all his money into one account?

$2019$ point grasshoppers sit on a line. At each move one of the grasshoppers jumps over another one and lands at the point the same distance away from it. Jumping only to the right, the grasshoppers are able to position themselves so that some two of them are exactly $1$ mm apart. Prove that the grasshoppers can achieve the same, jumping only to the left and starting from the initial position. (Sergey Dorichenko)

Alice and Bob play the following game: Alice picks a set $A = \{1, 2, ..., n \}$ for some natural number $n \ge 2$. Then, starting from Bob, they alternatively choose one number from the set $A$, according to the following conditions: initially Bob chooses any number he wants, afterwards the number chosen at each step should be distinct from all the already chosen numbers and should differ by $1$ from an already chosen number. The game ends when all numbers from the set $A$ are chosen. Alice wins if the sum of all the numbers that she has chosen is composite. Otherwise Bob wins. Decide which player has a winning strategy. Proposed by [i]Demetres Christofides, Cyprus[/i]

There are two bowls on the table, in one there are $p$, in the other $q$ stones ($p, q \in N*$ ). Two players $A$ and $B$ take turns playing, starting with $A$. Who's turn: $\bullet$ takes a stone from one of the bowls $\bullet$or removes one stone from each bowl $\bullet$ or puts a stone from one of the bowls into the other. Whoever takes the last stone wins. Under what conditions can $A$ and under what conditions can $B$ force the win? The answer must be justified.

On a lottery ticket a player has to mark $6$ numbers from $36$. Then $6$ numbers from these $36$ are drawn randomly and the ticket wins if none of the numbers that came out is marked on the ticket. Prove that a) it is possible to mark the numbers on $9$ tickets so that one of these tickets always wins, b) it is not possible to mark the numbers on $8$ tickets so that one of tickets always wins.

Three players $A,B$ and $C$ play a game with three cards and on each of these $3$ cards it is written a positive integer, all $3$ numbers are different. A game consists of shuffling the cards, giving each player a card and each player is attributed a number of points equal to the number written on the card and then they give the cards back. After a number $(\geq 2)$ of games we find out that A has $20$ points, $B$ has $10$ points and $C$ has $9$ points. We also know that in the last game B had the card with the biggest number. Who had in the first game the card with the second value (this means the middle card concerning its value).

$2019$ coins are on the table. Two students play the following game making alternating moves. The first player can in one move take the odd number of coins from $ 1$ to $99$, the second player in one move can take an even number of coins from $2$ to $100$. The player who can not make a move is lost. Who has the winning strategy in this game?

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.

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?