To each vertex of a regular pentagon an integer is assigned, so that the sum of all five numbers is positive. If three consecutive vertices are assigned the numbers $x,y,z$ respectively, and $y<0$, then the following operation is allowed: $x,y,z$ are replaced by $x+y,-y,z+y$ respectively. Such an operation is performed repeatedly as long as at least one of the five numbers is negative. Determine whether this procedure necessarily comes to an end after a finite number of steps.

Alma and Bertha play the following game. There are $100$ round, $200$ triangular and $200$ square pieces on a table. In each move a player must remove two pieces, but it cannot be a triangle and a square. Alma starts, and one loses if one is unable to move or if there are no pieces left when it is one’s turn. Which player has a winning strategy?

A pile of $2020$ stones is given. Arnaldo and Bernaldo play the following game: In each move, it is allowed to remove $1, 4, 16, 64, ...$ (any power of $4$) stones from the pile. They make their moves alternately, and the player who can no longer play loses. If Arnaldo is the first to play, who has the winning strategy?

Let $n\ge 3$ be an integer. Lucas and Matías play a game in a regular $n$-sided polygon with a vertex marked as a trap. Initially Matías places a token at one vertex of the polygon. In each step, Lucas says a positive integer and Matías moves the token that number of vertices clockwise or counterclockwise, at his choice. a) Determine all the $n\ge 3$ such that Matías can locate the token and move it in such a way as to never fall into the trap, regardless of the numbers Lucas says. Give the strategy to Matías. b) Determine all the $n\ge 3$ such that Lucas can force Matías to fall into the trap. Give the strategy to Lucas. Note. The two players know the value of $n$ and see the polygon.

The vertices of a regular polygon with $N$ sides are marked on the blackboard. Ana and Beto play alternately, Ana begins. Each player, in turn, must do the following: $\bullet$ join two vertices with a segment, without cutting another already marked segment; or $\bullet$ delete a vertex that does not belong to any marked segment. The player who cannot take any action on his turn loses the game. Determine which of the two players can guarantee victory: a) if $N=28$ b) if $N=29$

The cells of a $8 \times 8$ table are initially white. Alice and Bob play a game. First Alice paints $n$ of the fields in red. Then Bob chooses $4$ rows and $4$ columns from the table and paints all fields in them in black. Alice wins if there is at least one red field left. Find the least value of $n$ such that Alice can win the game no matter how Bob plays.

Twenty cubes of the same size and appearance are made of either aluminum or of heavier duralumin. How can one find the number of duralumin cubes using not more than $11$ weighings on a balance without weights? (We assume that all cubes can be made of aluminum, but not all of duralumin.)

Peter plays a solitaire game with a deck of cards, some of which are face-up while the others are face-down. Peter loses if all the cards are face-down. As long as at least one card is face up, Peter must choose a stack of consecutive cards from the deck, so that the top and the bottom cards of the stack are face-up. They may be the same card. Then Peter turns the whole stack over and puts it back into the deck in exactly the same place as before. Prove that Peter always loses. (A Shapovalov)

Given two heaps of checkers. the bigger contains $m$ checkers, the smaller -- $n$ ($m>n$). Two players are taking checkers in turn from the arbitrary heap. The players are allowed to take from the heap a number of checkers (not zero) divisible by the number of checkers in another heap. The player that takes the last checker in any heap wins. a) Prove that if $m > 2n$, than the first can always win. b) Find all $x$ such that if $m > xn$, than the first can always win.

Given a cube and two colours. Two players paint in turn a triple of arbitrary unpainted edges with his colour. (Everyone makes two moves.) The first wins if he has painted all the edges of some face with his colour. Can he always win?

Let ${k}$ be a fixed positive integer. A finite sequence of integers ${x_1,x_2, ..., x_n}$ is written on a blackboard. Pepa and Geoff are playing a game that proceeds in rounds as follows. - In each round, Pepa first partitions the sequence that is currently on the blackboard into two or more contiguous subsequences (that is, consisting of numbers appearing consecutively). However, if the number of these subsequences is larger than ${2}$, then the sum of numbers in each of them has to be divisible by ${k}$. - Then Geoff selects one of the subsequences that Pepa has formed and wipes all the other subsequences from the blackboard. The game finishes once there is only one number left on the board. Prove that Pepa may choose his moves so that independently of the moves of Geoff, the game finishes after at most ${3k}$ rounds. (Poland)

At the start of a game there are three boxes with $2008, 2009$ and $2010$ game pieces Anja and Bernd play in turns according to the following rule: [i]When it is your turn, select two boxes, empty them and then distribute the pieces from the third box to the three boxes, such that no box may remain empty.If you can no longer complete a turn, you have lost. [/i] Who has a winning strategy when Anja starts?

Alice and Bob play the following game. To start, Alice arranges the numbers $1,2,\ldots,n$ in some order in a row and then Bob chooses one of the numbers and places a pebble on it. A player's [i]turn[/i] consists of picking up and placing the pebble on an adjacent number under the restriction that the pebble can be placed on the number $k$ at most $k$ times. The two players alternate taking turns beginning with Alice. The first player who cannot make a move loses. For each positive integer $n$, determine who has a winning strategy.

Consider $2009$ cards, each having one gold side and one black side, lying on parallel on a long table. Initially all cards show their gold sides. Two player, standing by the same long side of the table, play a game with alternating moves. Each move consists of choosing a block of $50$ consecutive cards, the leftmost of which is showing gold, and turning them all over, so those which showed gold now show black and vice versa. The last player who can make a legal move wins. (a) Does the game necessarily end? (b) Does there exist a winning strategy for the starting player? [i]Proposed by Michael Albert, Richard Guy, New Zealand[/i]

The numbers from $1$ to $500$ are written on the board. Two players $A$ and $B$ erase alternately one number at a time, and $A$ deletes the first number. If the sum of the last two number on the board is divisible by $3$, $B$ wins, otherwise $A$ wins. Which player can lay out a strategy that ensures this player's victory?

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?

Two players play alternately. The first player is given a pair of positive integers $(x_1, y_1)$. Each player must replace the pair $(x_n, y_n)$ that he is given by a pair of non-negative integers $(x_{n+1}, y_{n+1})$ such that $x_{n+1} = min(x_n, y_n)$ and $y_{n+1} = max(x_n, y_n)- k\cdot x_{n+1}$ for some positive integer $k$. The first player to pass on a pair with $y_{n+1} = 0$ wins. Find for which values of $x_1/y_1$ the first player has a winning strategy.

Let $n > 1$ be a fixed integer. Alberto and Barbara play the following game: (i) Alberto chooses a positive integer, (ii) Barbara chooses an integer greater than $1$ which is a multiple or submultiple of the number Alberto chose (including itself), (iii) Alberto increases or decreases the Barbara’s number by $1$. Steps (ii) and (iii) are alternatively repeated. Barbara wins if she succeeds to reach the number $n$ in at most $50$ moves. For which values of $n$ can she win, no matter how Alberto plays?

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).

The main building of ETH Zurich is a rectangle divided into unit squares. Every side of a square is a wall, with certain walls having doors. The outer wall of the main building has no doors. A number of participants of the SMO have gathered in the main building lost. You can only move from one square to another through doors. We have indicates that there is a walkable path between every two squares of the main building. Cyril wants the participants to find each other again by having everyone on the same square leads. To do this, he can give them the following instructions via walkie-talkie: North, East, South or West. After each instruction, each participant simultaneously attempts a square in that direction to go. If there is no door in the corresponding wall, he remains standing. Show that Cyril can reach his goal after a finite number of directions, no matter which one square the participants at the beginning. [hide=original wording]Das Hauptgebäude der ETH Zürich ist ein in Einheitsquadrate unterteiltes Rechteck. Jede Seite eines Quadrates ist eine Wand, wobei gewisse Wände Türen haben. Die Aussenwand des Hauptgebäudes hat keine Türen. Eine Anzahl von Teilnehmern der SMO hat sich im Hauptgebäude verirrt. Sie können sich nur durch Türen von einem Quadrat zum anderen bewegen. Wir nehmen an, dass zwischen je zwei Quadraten des Hauptgebäudes ein begehbarer Weg existiert. Cyril möchte erreichen, dass sich die Teilnehmer wieder nden, indem er alle auf dasselbe Quadrat führt. Dazu kann er ihnen per Walkie-Talkie folgende Anweisungen geben: Nord, Ost, Süd oder West. Nach jeder Anweisung versucht jeder Teilnehmer gleichzeitig, ein Quadrat in diese Richtung zu gehen. Falls in der entsprechenden Wand keine Türe ist, bleibt er stehen. Zeige, dass Cyril sein Ziel nach endlich vielen Anweisungen erreichen kann, egal auf welchen Quadraten sich die Teilnehmer am Anfang benden. [/hide]

The numbers $1,2,3,\dots,1000$ are written on the board. Patya and Vassya are playing a game. They take turn alternatively erasing a number from the board. Patya begins. If after a turn all numbers (maybe one) on the board be divisible by a natural number greater than $1$ the player who last played loses. If after some number of steps the only remaining number on the board be $1$ then they call it a draw. Determine the result of the game if they both play their best.

Jordan is in the center of a circle whose radius is $100$ meters and can move one meter at a time, however, there is a giant who at every step can force you to move in the opposite direction to the one he chose (it does not mean returning to the place of departure, but advance but in the opposite direction to the chosen one). Determine the minimum number of steps that Jordan must give to get out of the circle.

Albert and Beatrice play a game. $2021$ stones lie on a table. Starting with Albert, they alternatively remove stones from the table, while obeying the following rule. At the $n$-th turn, the active player (Albert if $n$ is odd, Beatrice if $n$ is even) can remove from $1$ to $n$ stones. Thus, Albert first removes $1$ stone; then, Beatrice can remove $1$ or $2$ stones, as she wishes; then, Albert can remove from $1$ to $3$ stones, and so on. The player who removes the last stone on the table loses, and the other one wins. Which player has a strategy to win regardless of the other player's moves?

Anna and Basilis play a game writing numbers on a board as follows: The two players play in turns and if in the board is written the positive integer $n$, the player whose turn is chooses a prime divisor $p$ of $n$ and writes the numbers $n+p$. In the board, is written at the start number $2$ and Anna plays first. The game is won by whom who shall be first able to write a number bigger or equal to $31$. Find who player has a winning strategy, that is who may writing the appropriate numbers may win the game no matter how the other player plays.

There are $9999$ rods with lengths $1, 2, ..., 9998, 9999$. The players Anja and Bernd alternately remove one of the sticks, with Anja starting. The game ends when there are only three bars left. If from those three bars, a not degenerate triangle can be constructed then Anja wins, otherwise Bernd. Who has a winning strategy?