Found problems: 37
2012 Polish MO Finals, 4
$n$ players ($n \ge 4$) took part in the tournament. Each player played exactly one match with every other player, there were no draws. There was no four players $(A, B, C, D)$, such that $A$ won with $B$, $B$ won with $C$, $C$ won with $D$ and $D$ won with $A$. Determine, depending on $n$, maximum number of trios of players $(A, B, C)$, such that $A$ won with $B$, $B$ won with $C$ and $C$ won with $A$.
(Attention: Trios $(A, B, C)$, $(B, C, A)$ and $(C, A, B)$ are the same trio.)
1986 Tournament Of Towns, (124) 6
In a football tournament of one round (each team plays each other once, $2$ points for win , $1$ point for draw and $0$ points for loss), $28$ teams compete. During the tournament more than $75\%$ of the matches finished in a draw . Prove that there were two teams who finished with the same number of points.
(M . Vora, gymnasium student , Hungary)
1986 Tournament Of Towns, (111) 5
$20$ football teams take part in a tournament . On the first day all the teams play one match . On the second day all the teams play a further match . Prove that after the second day it is possible to select $10$ teams, so that no two of them have yet played each other.
( S . A . Genkin)
1981 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 317
Eighteen soccer teams have played $8$ tours of a one-round tournament. Prove that there is a triple of teams, having not met each other yet.
2014 Dutch Mathematical Olympiad, 3
At a volleyball tournament, each team plays exactly once against each other team. Each game has a winning team, which gets $1$ point. The losing team gets $0$ points. Draws do not occur. In the nal ranking, only one team turns out to have the least number of points (so there is no shared last place). Moreover, each team, except for the team having the least number of points, lost exactly one game against a team that got less points in the final ranking.
a) Prove that the number of teams cannot be equal to $6$.
b) Show, by providing an example, that the number of teams could be equal to $7$.
2015 USA Team Selection Test, 2
A tournament is a directed graph for which every (unordered) pair of vertices has a single directed edge from one vertex to the other. Let us define a proper directed-edge-coloring to be an assignment of a color to every (directed) edge, so that for every pair of directed edges $\overrightarrow{uv}$ and $\overrightarrow{vw}$, those two edges are in different colors. Note that it is permissible for $\overrightarrow{uv}$ and $\overrightarrow{uw}$ to be the same color. The directed-edge-chromatic-number of a tournament is defined to be the minimum total number of colors that can be used in order to create a proper directed-edge-coloring. For each $n$, determine the minimum directed-edge-chromatic-number over all tournaments on $n$ vertices.
[i]Proposed by Po-Shen Loh[/i]
2017 Dutch Mathematical Olympiad, 3
Six teams participate in a hockey tournament. Each team plays exactly once against each other team. A team is awarded $3$ points for each game they win, $1$ point for each draw, and $0$ points for each game they lose. After the tournament, a ranking is made. There are no ties in the list. Moreover, it turns out that each team (except the very last team) has exactly $2$ points more than the team ranking one place lower.
Prove that the team that finished fourth won exactly two games.
1946 Moscow Mathematical Olympiad, 116
a) Two seventh graders and several eightth graders take part in a chess tournament. The two seventh graders together scored eight points. The scores of eightth graders are equal. How many eightth graders took part in the tournament?
b) Ninth and tenth graders participated in a chess tournament. There were ten times as many tenth graders as ninth graders. The total score of tenth graders was $4.5$ times that of the ninth graders. What was the ninth graders score?
Note: According to the rules of a chess tournament, each of the tournament participants ra plays one game with each of them. If one of the players wins the game, then he gets one point, and his opponent gets zero points. In case of a tie, the players receive 1/2 point.
1969 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 126
$20$ football teams participate in the championship. What minimal number of the games should be played to provide the property:
[i] from the three arbitrary teams we can find at least on pair that have already met in the championship.[/i]
1968 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 108
Each of the $9$ referees on the figure skating championship estimates the program of $20$ sportsmen by assigning him a place (from $1$ to $20$). The winner is determined by adding those numbers. (The less is the sum - the higher is the final place). It was found, that for the each sportsman, the difference of the places, received from the different referees was not greater than $3$. What can be the maximal sum for the winner?
2022 Kyiv City MO Round 1, Problem 5
$n\ge 2$ teams participated in an underwater polo tournament, each two teams played exactly once against each other. A team receives $2, 1, 0$ points for a win, draw, and loss correspondingly. It turned out that all teams got distinct numbers of points. In the final standings, the teams were ordered by the total number of points.
A few days later, organizers realized that the results in the final standings were wrong due to technical issues: in fact, each match that ended with a draw according to them in fact had a winner, and each match with a winner in fact ended with a draw. It turned out that all teams still had distinct number of points! They corrected the standings and ordered them by the total number of points.
For which $n$ could the correct order turn out to be the reversed initial order?
[i](Proposed by Fedir Yudin)[/i]
2000 Tournament Of Towns, 6
In the spring round of the Tournament of Towns this year, $6$ problems were posed in the Senior A-Level paper. In a certain country, each problem was solved by exactly $1000$ participants, but no two participants solved all $6$ problems between them. What is the smallest possible number of participants from this country in the spring round Senior A-Level paper?
(R Zhenodarov)
2023 Ukraine National Mathematical Olympiad, 8.2
In one country, a one-round tennis tournament was held (everyone played with everyone exactly once). Participants received $1$ point for winning a match, and $0$ points for losing. There are no draws in tennis. At the end of the tournament, Oleksiy saw the number of points scored by each participant, as well as the schedule of all the matches in the tournament, which showed the pairs of players, but not the winners. He chooses matches one by one in any order he wants and tries to guess the winner, after which he is told if he is correct. Prove that Oleksiy can act in such a way that he is guaranteed to guess the winners of more than half of the matches.
[i]Proposed by Oleksiy Masalitin[/i]
2000 239 Open Mathematical Olympiad, 2
100 volleyball teams played a one-round tournament. No two matches held at the same time. It turned out that before each match the teams playing against each other had the same number of wins. Find all possible number of wins for the winner of this tournament.
1963 All Russian Mathematical Olympiad, 028
Eight men had participated in the chess tournament. (Each meets each, draws are allowed, giving $1/2$ of point, winner gets $1$.) Everyone has different number of points. The second one has got as many points as the four weakest participants together. What was the result of the play between the third prizer and the chess-player that have occupied the seventh place?
2023 Indonesia TST, C
Six teams participate in a hockey tournament. Each team plays exactly once against each other team. A team is awarded $3$ points for each game they win, $1$ point for each draw, and $0$ points for each game they lose. After the tournament, a ranking is made. There are no ties in the list. Moreover, it turns out that each team (except the very last team) has exactly $2$ points more than the team ranking one place lower.
Prove that the team that finished fourth won exactly two games.
2014 Contests, 3
At a volleyball tournament, each team plays exactly once against each other team. Each game has a winning team, which gets $1$ point. The losing team gets $0$ points. Draws do not occur. In the nal ranking, only one team turns out to have the least number of points (so there is no shared last place). Moreover, each team, except for the team having the least number of points, lost exactly one game against a team that got less points in the final ranking.
a) Prove that the number of teams cannot be equal to $6$.
b) Show, by providing an example, that the number of teams could be equal to $7$.
2023 German National Olympiad, 3
For a competition a school wants to nominate a team of $k$ students, where $k$ is a given positive integer. Each member of the team has to compete in the three disciplines juggling, singing and mental arithmetic. To qualify for the team, the $n \ge 2$ students of the school compete in qualifying competitions, determining a unique ranking in each of the three disciplines. The school now wants to nominate a team satisfying the following condition:
$(*)$ [i]If a student $X$ is not nominated for the team, there is a student $Y$ on the team who defeated $X$ in at least two disciplines.[/i]
Determine all positive integers $n \ge 2$ such that for any combination of rankings, a team can be chosen to satisfy the condition $(*)$, when
a) $k=2$,
b) $k=3$.
1955 Moscow Mathematical Olympiad, 315
Five men play several sets of dominoes (two against two) so that each player has each other player once as a partner and two times as an opponent. Find the number of sets and all ways to arrange the players.
2004 Mexico National Olympiad, 4
At the end of a soccer tournament in which any pair of teams played between them exactly once, and in which there were not draws, it was observed that for any three teams $A, B$ and C, if $A$ defeated $B$ and $B$ defeated $C$, then $A$ defeated $C$. Any team calculated the difference (positive) between the number of games that it won and the number of games it lost. The sum of all these differences was $5000$. How many teams played in the tournament? Find all possible answers.
1999 Croatia National Olympiad, Problem 4
In a basketball competition, $n$ teams took part. Each pair of teams played exactly one match, and there were no draws. At the end of the competition the $i$-th team had $x_i$ wins and $y_i$ defeats $(i=1,\ldots,n)$. Prove that $x_1^2+x_2^2+\ldots+x_n^2=y_1^2+y_2^2+\ldots+y_n^2$.
2018 Bulgaria EGMO TST, 1
In a qualification football round there are six teams and each two play one versus another exactly once. No two matches are played at the same time. At every moment the difference between the number of already played matches for any two teams is $0$ or $1$. A win is worth $3$ points, a draw is worth $1$ point and a loss is worth $0$ points. Determine the smallest positive integer $n$ for which it is possible that after the $n$-th match all teams have a different number of points and each team has a non-zero number of points.
2023 Indonesia TST, C
Six teams participate in a hockey tournament. Each team plays exactly once against each other team. A team is awarded $3$ points for each game they win, $1$ point for each draw, and $0$ points for each game they lose. After the tournament, a ranking is made. There are no ties in the list. Moreover, it turns out that each team (except the very last team) has exactly $2$ points more than the team ranking one place lower.
Prove that the team that finished fourth won exactly two games.
2014 BAMO, 5
A chess tournament took place between $2n+1$ players. Every player played every other player once, with no draws. In addition, each player had a numerical rating before the tournament began, with no two players having equal ratings. It turns out there were exactly $k$ games in which the lower-rated player beat the higher-rated player. Prove that there is some player who won no less than $n-\sqrt{2k}$ and no more than $n+\sqrt{2k}$ games.
2024 ISI Entrance UGB, P8
In a sports tournament involving $N$ teams, each team plays every other team exactly one. At the end of every match, the winning team gets $1$ point and losing team gets $0$ points. At the end of the tournament, the total points received by the individual teams are arranged in decreasing order as follows: \[x_1 \ge x_2 \ge \cdots
\ge x_N . \]
Prove that for any $1\le k \le N$, \[\frac{N - k}{2} \le x_k \le N - \frac{k+1}{2}\]