(a) Two people perform a card trick. The first performer takes $5$ cards from a $52$-card deck (previously shuffled by a member of the audience) , looks at them, and arranges them in a row from left to right: one face down (not necessarily the first one) , the others face up . The second performer guesses correctly the card which is face down. Prove that the performers can agree on a system which always makes this possible. (b) For their second trick, the first performer arranges four cards in a row, face up, the fifth card is kept hidden. Can they still agree on a system which enables the second performer to correctly guess the hidden card? (G Galperin)

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.

Nico picks $13$ pairwise distinct $3-$digit positive integers. Ian then selects several of these 13 numbers, the ones he wants, and using only once each selected number and some of the operations addition, subtraction, multiplication and division ($+,-,\times ,:$) must get an expression whose value is greater than $3$ and less than $4$. If he succeeds, Ian wins; otherwise, Nico wins. Which of the two has a winning strategy?

Nikolai and Peter are dividing a cake in the shape of a triangle. Firstly, Nikolai chooses one point $P$ inside the triangle and after that Peter cuts the cake by any line he chooses through $P$, then takes one of the pieces and leaves the other one for Nikolai. What’s the greatest portion of the cake Nikolai can be sure he could take, if he chooses $P$ in the best way possible?

(a) On each square of a squared sheet of paper of size $20 \times 20$ there is a soldier. Vanya chooses a number $d$ and Petya moves the soldiers to new squares in such a way that each soldier is moved through a distance of at least $d$ (the distance being measured between the centres of the initial and the new squares) and each square is occupied by exactly one soldier. For which $d$ is this possible? (Give the maximum possible $d$, prove that it is possible to move the soldiers through distances not less than $d$ and prove that there is no greater $d$ for which this procedure may be carried out.) (b) Answer the same question as (a), but with a sheet of size $21 \times 21$. (SS Krotov, Moscow)

Chris and Michael play a game on a board which is a rhombus of side length $n$ (a positive integer) consisting of two equilateral triangles, each of which has been divided into equilateral triangles of side length $ 1$. Each has a single token, initially on the leftmost and rightmost squares of the board, called the “home” squares (the illustration shows the case $n = 4$). [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/e/b/8135203c22ce77c03c144850099ad1c575edb8.png[/img] A move consists of moving your token to an adjacent triangle (two triangles are adjacent only if they share a side). To win the game, you must either capture your opponent’s token (by moving to the triangle it occupies), or move on to your opponent’s home square. Supposing that Chris moves first, which, if any, player has a winning strategy?

Axel and Berta play the following games: On a board are a number of positive integers. One move consists of a player exchanging a number $x$ on the board for two positive integers y and $z$ (not necessarily different), such that $y + z = x$. The game ends when the numbers on the board are relatively coprime in pairs. The player who made the last move has then lost the game. At the beginning of the game, only the number $2015$ is on the board. The two players make do their moves in turn and Berta begins. One of the players has a winning strategy. Who, and why?

On her blackboard, Alice has written $n$ integers strictly greater than $1$. Then, she can, as often as she likes, erase two numbers $a$ and $b$ such that $a \neq b$, and replace them with $q$ and $q^2$, where $q$ is the product of the prime factors of $ab$ (each prime factor is counted only once). For instance, if Alice erases the numbers $4$ and $6$, the prime factors of $ab = 2^3 \times 3$ and $2$ and $3$, and Alice writes $q = 6$ and $q^2 =36$. Prove that, after some time, and whatever Alice's strategy is, the list of numbers written on the blackboard will never change anymore. [i]Note: The order of the numbers of the list is not important.[/i]

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.

Alice and Bob are playing a year number game. There will be two game numbers $19$ and $20$ and one starting number from the set $\{9, 10\}$ used. Alice chooses independently her game number and Bob chooses the starting number. The other number is given to Bob. Then Alice adds her game number to the starting number, Bob adds his game number to the result, Alice adds her number of games to the result, etc. The game continues until the number $2019$ is reached or exceeded. Whoever reaches the number $2019$ wins. If $2019$ is exceeded, the game ends in a draw. $\bullet$ Show that Bob cannot win. $\bullet$ What starting number does Bob have to choose to prevent Alice from winning? (Richard Henner)

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.

The Devil and the Man play a game. Initially, the Man pays some cash $s$ to the Devil. Then he lists some $97$ triples $\{i,j,k\}$ consisting of positive integers not exceeding $100$. After that, the Devil draws some convex polygon $A_1A_2...A_{100}$ with area $100$ and pays to the Man, the sum of areas of all triangles $A_iA_jA_k$. Determine the maximal value of $s$ which guarantees that the Man receives at least as much cash as he paid. [i]Proposed by Nikolai Beluhov, Bulgaria[/i]

Hamza and Majid play a game on a horizontal $3 \times 2015$ white board. They alternate turns, with Hamza going first. A legal move for Hamza consists of painting three unit squares forming a horizontal $1 \times 3$ rectangle. A legal move for Majid consists of painting three unit squares forming a vertical $3\times 1$ rectangle. No one of the two players is allowed to repaint already painted squares. The last player to make a legal move wins. Which of the two players, Hamza or Majid, can guarantee a win no matter what strategy his opponent chooses and what is his strategy to guarantee a win? Lê Anh Vinh

(Game) At the beginning of the game the organisers place $4$ piles of paper disks onto the table. The player who is in turn takes away a pile, then divides one of the remaining piles into two nonempty piles. Whoever is unable to move, loses. [i]Defeat the organisers in this game twice in a row! A starting position will be given and then you can decide whether you want to go first or second.[/i]

$60$ symbols, each of which is either $X$ or $O$, are written consecutively on a strip of paper. This strip must then be cut into pieces with each piece containing symbols symmetric about their centre, e.g. $O, XX, OXXXXX, XOX$, etc. (a) Prove that there is a way of cutting the strip so that there are no more than $24$ such pieces. (b) Give an example of such an arrangement of the signs for which the number of pieces cannot be less than $15$. (c) Try to improve the result of (b).

Let $n$ be a positive integer. Lavi Dopes has two boards $n \times n$. On the first board, he writes an integer in each of his $n^2$ squares (the written numbers are not necessarily distinct). On the second board, he writes, on each square, the sum of the numbers corresponding, on the first board, to that square and to all its adjacent squares (that is, those that share a common vertex). For example, if $n = 3$ and if Lavi Dopes writes the numbers on the first board, as shown below, the second board will look like this. Next, Davi Lopes receives only the second board, and from it, he tries to discover the numbers written by Lavi Dopes on the first board. (a) If $n = 4$, is it possible that Davi Lopes always manages to find the numbers written by Lavi Dopes on the first board? (b) If $n = 5$, is it possible that Davi Lopes always manages to find the numbers written by Lavi Dopes on the first board?

A board consists of $2021 \times 2021$ squares all of which are white, except for one corner square which is black. Alma and Bertha play the following game. At the beginning, there is a piece on the black square. In each turn, the player must move the piece to a new square in the same row or column as the one in which the piece is currently. All squares that the piece moves across, including the ending square but excluding the starting square, must be white, and all squares that the piece moves across, including the ending square, become black by this move. Alma begins, and the first player unable to move loses. Which player may prepare a strategy which secures her the victory? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/a/7/270d82f37b729bfe661f8a92cea8be67e5625c.png[/img]

Give and Take divide $100$ coins between themselves as follows. In each step, Give chooses a handful of coins from the heap, and Take decides who gets this handful. This is repeated until all coins have been taken, or one of them has $9$ handfuls. In the latter case, the other gets all the remaining coins. What is the largest number of coins that Give can be sure of getting no matter what Take does? (A Shapovalov)

Given three automates that deal with the cards with the pairs of natural numbers. The first, having got the card with ($a,b)$, produces new card with $(a+1,b+1)$, the second, having got the card with $(a,b)$, produces new card with $(a/2,b/2)$, if both $a$ and $b$ are even and nothing in the opposite case; the third, having got the pair of cards with $(a,b)$ and $(b,c)$ produces new card with $(a,c)$. All the automates return the initial cards also. Suppose there was $(5,19)$ card initially. Is it possible to obtain a) $(1,50)$? b) $(1,100)$? c) Suppose there was $(a,b)$ card initially $(a<b)$. We want to obtain $(1,n)$ card. For what $n$ is it possible?

Two players, Agon and Besa, choose a number from the set $\{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8\}$, in turns, until no number is left. Then, each player sums all the numbers that he has chosen. We say that a player wins if the sum of his chosen numbers is a prime and the sum of the numbers that his opponent has chosen is composite. In the contrary, the game ends in a draw. Agon starts first. Does there exist a winning strategy for any of the players?

The polynomial $$x^{10} + ?x^9 + ?x^8 + ... + ?x + 1$$ is written on the blackboard. Two players substitute (real) numbers instead of one of the question marks in turn. ($9$ turns total.) The first wins if the polynomial will have no real roots. Who wins?

John and Mary play the following game. First they choose integers $n > m > 0$ and put $n$ sweets on an empty table. Then they start to make moves alternately. A move consists of choosing a nonnegative integer $k\le m$ and taking $k$ sweets away from the table (if $k = 0$ , nothing happens in fact). In doing so no value for $k$ can be chosen more than once (by none of the players) or can be greater than the number of sweets at the table at the moment of choice. The game is over when one of the players can make no more moves. John and Mary decided that at the beginning Mary chooses the numbers $m$ and $n$ and then John determines whether the performer of the last move wins or looses. Can Mary choose $m$ and $n$ in such way that independently of John’s decision she will be able to win?

On the table there are $50$ stacks of coins that have $1,2,3,…,50$ coins respectively. Ana and Beto play the following game in turns: First, Ana chooses one of the $50$ piles on the table, and Beto decides if that pile is for Ana or for him. Then, Beto chooses one of the $49$ remaining piles on the table, and Ana decides if that pile is for her or for Beto. They continue playing alternately in this way until one of the players has $25$ batteries. When that happens, the other player takes all the remaining stacks on the table and whoever has the most coins wins. Determine which of the two players has a winning strategy.

Two pupils $A$ and $B$ play the following game. They begin with a pile of $1998$ matches and $A$ plays first. A player who is on turn must take a nonzero square number of matches from the pile. The winner is the one who makes the last move. Decide who has the winning strategy and give one such strategy.

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.