Found problems: 304
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.
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?
Julian and Johan are playing a game with an even number of cards, say $2n$ cards, ($n \in Z_{>0}$). Every card is marked with a positive integer. The cards are shuffled and are arranged in a row, in such a way that the numbers are visible. The two players take turns picking cards. During a turn, a player can pick either the rightmost or the leftmost card. Johan is the first player to pick a card (meaning Julian will have to take the last card). Now, a player’s score is the sum of the numbers on the cards that player acquired during the game.
Prove that Johan can always get a score that is at least as high as Julian’s.
A point $P$ is interior to the triangle $ABC$ such that $AP \perp BC$. Let $E, F$ be the projections of $CA, AB$. Suppose that the tangents at $E, F$ of the circumcircle of triangle $AEF$ meets at a point on $BC$. Prove that $P$ is the orthocenter of triangle $ABC$.
Do Thanh Son, High School of Natural Sciences, National University, Hanoi
Alice and Bob play a game with a string of $2015$ pearls.
In each move, one player cuts the string between two pearls and the other player chooses one of the resulting parts of the string while the other part is discarded.
In the first move, Alice cuts the string, thereafter, the players take turns.
A player loses if he or she obtains a string with a single pearl such that no more cut is possible.
Who of the two players does have a winning strategy?
(Theresia Eisenkölbl)
Chip and Dale play the following game. Chip starts by splitting $1001$ nuts between three piles, so Dale can see it. In response, Dale chooses some number $N$ from $1$ to $1001$. Then Chip moves nuts from the piles he prepared to a new (fourth) pile until there will be exactly $N$ nuts in any one or more piles. When Chip accomplishes his task, Dale gets an exact amount of nuts that Chip moved. What is the maximal number of nuts that Dale can get for sure, no matter how Chip acts? (Naturally, Dale wants to get as many nuts as possible, while Chip wants to lose as little as possible).
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)
Let $n$ be a positive integer. Aslı and Zehra are playing a game on an $n\times n$ grid. Initially, $10n^2$ stones are placed on some of the unit squares of this grid.
On each move (starting with Aslı), Aslı chooses a row or a column that contains at least two squares with different numbers of stones, and Zehra redistributes the stones in that row or column so that after redistribution, the difference in the number of stones between any two squares in that row or column is at most one. Furthermore, this move must change the number of stones in at least one square.
For which values of $n$, regardless of the initial placement of the stones, can Aslı guarantee that every square ends up with the same number of stones?
In a circle there are $2019$ plates, on each lies one cake. Petya and Vasya are playing a game. In one move, Petya points at a cake and calls number from $1$ to $16$, and Vasya moves the specified cake to the specified number of
check clockwise or counterclockwise (Vasya chooses the direction each time). Petya wants at least some $k$ pastries to accumulate on one of the plates and Vasya wants to stop him. What is the largest $k$ Petya can succeed?
Given a cube, a cubic box, that exactly suits for the cube, and six colours. First man paints each side of the cube with its (side's) unique colour. Another man does the same with the box. Prove that the third man can put the cube in the box in such a way, that every cube side will touch the box side of different colour.
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.
The numbers $1, 2,..., 2020$ are written on the blackboard. Venus and Serena play the following game. First, Venus connects by a line segment two numbers such that one of them divides the other. Then Serena connects by a line segment two numbers which has not been connected and such that one of them divides the other. Then Venus again and they continue until there is a triangle with one vertex in $2020$, i.e. $2020$ is connected to two numbers that are connected with each other. The girl that has drawn the last line segment (completed the triangle) is the winner. Which of the girls has a winning strategy?
(Tomáš Bárta, Czech Republic)
Two players play a game on an infinite board that consists of unit squares. Player $I$ chooses a square and marks it with $O$. Then player $II$ chooses another square and marks it with $X$. They play until one of the players marks a whole row or a whole column of five consecutive squares, and this player wins the game. If no player can achieve this, the result of the game is a tie. Show that player $II$ can prevent player $I$ from winning.
A regular icosahedron is a regular solid of $20$ faces, each in the form of an equilateral triangle, with $12$ vertices, so that each vertex is in $5$ edges.
Twelve indistinguishable candies are glued to the vertices of a regular icosahedron (one at each vertex), and four of these twelve candies are special. André and Lucas want to together create a strategy for the following game:
• First, André is told which are the four special sweets and he must remove exactly four sweets that are not special from the icosahedron and leave the solid on a table, leaving afterwards without communicating with Lucas.
• Later, Sponchi, who wants to prevent Lucas from discovering the special sweets, can pick up the icosahedron from the table and rotate it however he wants.
• After Sponchi makes his move, he leaves the room, Lucas enters and he must determine the four special candies out of the eight that remain in the icosahedron.
Determine if there is a strategy for which Lucas can always properly discover the four special sweets.
Let $n\ge 2$ be an integer. Ariane and Bérénice play a game on the number of the residue classes modulo $n$. At the beginning there is the residue class $1$ on each piece of paper. It is the turn of the player whose turn it is to replace the current residue class $x$ with either $x + 1$ or by $2x$. The two players take turns, with Ariane starting.
Ariane wins if the residue class $0$ is reached during the game. Bérénice wins if she can prevent that permanently.
Depending on $n$, determine which of the two has a winning strategy.
$n$ numbers are written on a blackboard. Someone then repeatedly erases two numbers and writes half their arithmetic mean instead, until only a single number remains. If all the original numbers were $1$, show that the final number is not less than $\frac{1}{n}$.
Two intelligent people playing a game on the $1403 \times 1403$ table with $1403^2$ cells. The first one in each turn chooses a cell that didn't select before and draws a vertical line segment from the top to the bottom of the cell. The second person in each turn chooses a cell that didn't select before and draws a horizontal line segment from the left to the right of the cell. After $1403^2$ steps the game will be over. The first person gets points equal to the longest verticals line segment and analogously the second person gets point equal to the longest horizonal line segment. At the end the person who gets the more point will win the game. What will be the result of the game?
There is an empty table with $2^{100}$ rows and $100$ columns. Alice and Eva take turns filling the empty cells of the first row of the table, Alice plays first. In each move, Alice chooses an empty cell and puts a cross in it; Eva in each move chooses an empty cell and puts a zero. When no empty cells remain in the first row, the players move on to the second row, and so on (in each new row Alice plays first).
The game ends when all the rows are filled. Alice wants to make as many different rows in the table as possible, while Eva wants to make as few as possible. How many different rows will be there in the table if both follow their best strategies?
Proposed by Denis Afrizonov
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.
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)
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.
There are $2024$ mathematicians sitting in a row next to the river Tisza. Each of them is working on exactly one research topic, and if two mathematicians are working on the same topic, everyone sitting between them is also working on it.
Marvin is trying to figure out for each pair of mathematicians whether they are working on the same topic. He is allowed to ask each mathematician the following question: “How many of these 2024 mathematicians are working on your topic?” He asks the questions one by one, so he knows all previous answers before he asks the next one.
Determine the smallest positive integer $k$ such that Marvin can always accomplish his goal with at most $k$ questions.
Mr. Ganzgenau would like to take his tea mug out of the microwave right at the front. But Mr. Ganzgenau's microwave doesn't really want to be very precise play along. To be precise, the two of them play the following game:
Let $n$ be a positive integer. The turntable of the microwave makes one in $n$ seconds full turn. Each time the microwave is switched on, an integer number of seconds turned either clockwise or counterclockwise so that there are n possible positions in which the tea mug can remain. One of these positions is right up front.
At the beginning, the microwave turns the tea mug to one of the $n$ possible positions. After that Mr. Ganzgenau enters an integer number of seconds in each move, and the microwave decides either clockwise or counterclockwise this number of spin for seconds.
For which $n$ can Mr. Ganzgenau force the tea cup after a finite number of puffs to be able to take it out of the microwave right up front?
(Birgit Vera Schmidt)
[hide=original wording, in case it doesn't make much sense]Herr Ganzgenau möchte sein Teehäferl ganz genau vorne aus der Mikrowelle herausnehmen. Die Mikrowelle von Herrn Ganzgenau möchte da aber so ganz genau gar nicht mitspielen.
Ganz genau gesagt spielen die beiden das folgende Spiel:
Sei n eine positive ganze Zahl. In n Sekunden macht der Drehteller der Mikrowelle eine vollständige Umdrehung. Bei jedem Einschalten der Mikrowelle wird eine ganzzahlige Anzahl von Sekunden entweder im oder gegen den Uhrzeigersinn gedreht, sodass es n mögliche Positionen gibt, auf denen das Teehäferl stehen bleiben kann. Eine dieser Positionen ist ganz genau vorne.
Zu Beginn dreht die Mikrowelle das Teehäferl auf eine der n möglichen Positionen. Danach gibt Herr Ganzgenau in jedem Zug eine ganzzahlige Anzahl von Sekunden ein, und die Mikrowelle entscheidet, entweder im oder gegen den Uhrzeigersinn diese Anzahl von Sekunden lang zu drehen.
Für welche n kann Herr Ganzgenau erzwingen, das Teehäferl nach endlich vielen Zügen ganz genau vorne aus der Mikrowelle nehmen zu können?
(Birgit Vera Schmidt) [/hide]
Arne and Bertil play a game on an $11 \times 11$ grid. Arne starts. He has a game piece that is placed on the center od the grid at the beginning of the game. At each move he moves the piece one step horizontally or vertically. Bertil places a wall along each move any of an optional four squares. Arne is not allowed to move his piece through a wall. Arne wins if he manages to move the pice out of the board, while Bertil wins if he manages to prevent Arne from doing that. Who wins if from the beginning there are no walls on the game board and both players play optimally?
There are two bowls on a table, one white and one black. In the white bowl there $2019$ balls.
Players $A$ and $B$ play a game where they make every other move ($A$ begins).
One move consists is
$\bullet$ to move one or your balls from one bowl to the other, or
$\bullet$ to remove a ball from the white bowl,
with the condition that the resulting position (that is, the number of bullets in the two bowls) have not occurred before. The player who has no valid move to make loses.
Can any of the players be sure to win? If so, which one?