Two players take turns to write natural numbers on a board. The rules forbid writing numbers greater than $p$ and also divisors of previously written numbers. The player who has no move loses. Determine which player has a winning strategy for $p = 10$ and describe this strategy.

Amber and Brian are playing a game using $2010$ coins. Throughout the game, the coins are divided into a number of piles of at least 1 coin each. A move consists of choosing one or more piles and dividing each of them into two smaller piles. (So piles consisting of only $1$ coin cannot be chosen.) Initially, there is only one pile containing all $2010$ coins. Amber and Brian alternatingly take turns to make a move, starting with Amber. The winner is the one achieving the situation where all piles have only one coin. Show that Amber can win the game, no matter which moves Brian makes.

Given $n \ge 2$ points on a circle, Alice and Bob play the following game. Initially, a tile is placed on one of the points and no segment is drawn. The players alternate in turns, with Alice to start. In a turn, a player moves the tile from its current position $P$ to one of the $n-1$ other points $Q$ and draws the segment $PQ$. This move is not allowed if the segment $PQ$ is already drawn. If a player cannot make a move, the game is over and the opponent wins. Determine, for each $n$, which of the two players has a winning strategy.

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.

Rosa and Sara play with a triangle $ABC$, right at $B$. Rosa begins by marking two interior points of the hypotenuse $AC$, then Sara marks an interior point of the hypotenuse $AC$ different from those of Rosa. Then, from these three points the perpendiculars to the sides $AB$ and $BC$ are drawn, forming the following figure. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/9/9/c964bbacc4a5960bee170865cc43902410e504.png[/img] Sara wins if the area of the shaded surface is equal to the area of the unshaded surface, in other case wins Rosa. Determine who of the two has a winning strategy.

There are $4$ piles of stones with the following quantities: $1004$, $1005$, $2009$ and $2010$. A legitimate move is to remove a stone from each from $3$ different piles. Two players $A$ and $B$ play in turns. $A$ begins the game . The player who, on his turn, cannot make a legitimate move, loses. Determine which of the players has a winning strategy and give a strategy for that player.

A game consists of a grid of $4\times 4$ and tiles of two colors (Yellow and White). A player chooses a type of token and gives it to the second player who places it where he wants, then the second player chooses a type of token and gives it to the first who places it where he wants, They continue in this way and the one who manages to form a line with three tiles of the same color wins (horizontal, vertical or diagonal and regardless of whether it is the tile you started with or not). Before starting the game, two yellow and two white pieces are already placed as shows the figure below. [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/b/5/ba11377252c278c4154a8c3257faf363430ef7.png[/img] Yolanda and Xinia play a game. If Yolanda starts (choosing the token and giving it to Xinia for this to place) indicate if there is a winning strategy for either of the two players and, if any, describe the strategy.

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 $N=29$

Ana and Bogdan play the following turn based game: Ana starts with a pile of $n$ ($n \ge 3$) stones. At his turn each player has to split one pile. The winner is the player who can make at his turn all the piles to have at most two stones. Depending on $n$, determine which player has a winning strategy.

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).

Mathematicians $M$ and $N$ each have their own favorite collection of manuals on the book, which he often uses in his work. Once they decided to make a statement in which each mathematician proves at each turn any theorem from his handbook which neither has yet been proven. Everything is done in turn, the mathematician starts $M$. The theorems of the handbook can win first all proven; if the theorems of both manuals can proved at once, wins the last theorem proved by a mathematician. Let $m$ be a theorem in the mathematician's handbook $M$. Find all values of $m$ for which the mathematician $M$ has a winning strategy if is It is known that there are $222$ theorems in the mathematician's handbook $N$ and $101$ of them also appears in the mathematician's $M$ handbook.

Two players $A$ and $B$ take turns taking stones from a pile of $N$ stones. They play in the order $A$, $B$, $A$, $B$, $A$, $....$, $A$ starts the game and the one who takes out the last stone loses.$ B$ can serve on each play $1$, $2$ or 3 stones, while$ A$ can draw $2, 3, 4$ stones or $1$ stone in each turn f it is the last one in the pile. Determine for what values of $N$ does $A$ have a winning strategy, and for what values the winning strategy is $B$'s.

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?

There are seven piles with $2014$ pebbles each and a pile with $2008$ pebbles. Ana and Beto play in turns and Ana always plays first. One move consists of removing pebbles from all the piles. From each pile is removed a different amount of pebbles, between $1$ and $8$ pebbles. The first player who cannot make a move loses. a) Who has a winning strategy? b) If there were seven piles with $2015$ pebbles each and a pile with $2008$ pebbles, who has a winning strategy?

Let $n$ $\geq$ $2$ and $k$ $\geq$ $2$ be positive integers. A cat and a mouse are playing [i]Wim[/i], which is a stone removal game. The game starts with $n$ stones and they take turns removing stones, with the cat going first. On each turn they are allowed to remove $1$, $2$, $\dotsb$, or $k$ stones, and the player who cannot remove any stones on their turn loses. \\\\ A raccoon finds Wim very boring and creates [i]Wim 2[/i], which is Wim but with the following additional rule: [i]You cannot remove the same number of stones that your opponent removed on the previous turn[/i]. \\\\Find all values of $k$ such that for every $n$, the cat has a winning strategy in Wim if and only if it has a winning strategy in Wim 2.

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?

$2019$ 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.

Let $(a,b)$ be a pair of natural numbers. Henning and Paul play the following game. At the beginning there are two piles of $a$ and $b$ coins respectively. We say that $(a,b)$ is the [i]starting position [/i]of the game. Henning and Paul play with the following rules: $\bullet$ They take turns alternatively where Henning begins. $\bullet$ In every step each player either takes a positive integer number of coins from one of the two piles or takes same natural number of coins from both piles. $\bullet$ The player how take the last coin wins. Let $A$ be the set of all positive integers like $a$ for which there exists a positive integer $b<a$ such that Paul has a wining strategy for the starting position $(a,b)$. Order the elements of $A$ to construct a sequence $a_1<a_2<a_3<\dots$ $(a)$ Prove that $A$ has infinity many elements. $(b)$ Prove that the sequence defined by $m_k:=a_{k+1}-a_{k}$ will never become periodic. (This means the sequence $m_{k_0+k}$ will not be periodic for any choice of $k_0$)

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?

Arnulfo and Berenice play the following game: One of the two starts by writing a number from $ 1$ to $30$, the other chooses a number from $ 1$ to $30$ and adds it to the initial number, the first player chooses a number from $ 1$ to $30$ and adds it to the previous result, they continue doing the same until someone manages to add $2018$. When Arnulfo was about to start, Berenice told him that it was unfair, because whoever started had a winning strategy, so the numbers had better change. So they asked the following question: Adding chosen numbers from $1 $ to $a$, until reaching the number $ b$, what conditions must meet $a$ and $ b$ so that the first player does not have a winning strategy? Indicate if Arnulfo and Berenice are right and answer the question asked by them.

Ana and Natalia alternately play on a $ n \times n$ board (Ana rolls first and $n> 1$). At the beginning, Ana's token is placed in the upper left corner and Natalia's in the lower right corner. A turn consists of moving the corresponding piece in any of the four directions (it is not allowed to move diagonally), without leaving the board. The winner is whoever manages to place their token on the opponent's token. Determine if either of them can secure victory after a finite number of turns.

Let $ABC$ be any triangle with $\angle BAC \le \angle ACB \le \angle CBA$. Let $D, E$ and $F$ be the midpoints of $BC, CA$ and $AB$, respectively, and let $\epsilon$ be a positive real number. Suppose there is an ant (represented by a point $T$ ) and two spiders (represented by points $P_1$ and $P_2$, respectively) walking on the sides $BC, CA, AB, EF, FD$ and $DE$. The ant and the spiders may vary their speeds, turn at an intersection point, stand still, or turn back at any point; moreover, they are aware of their and the others’ positions at all time. Assume that the ant’s speed does not exceed $1$ mm/s, the first spider’s speed does not exceed $\frac{\sin A}{2 \sin A+\sin B}$ mm/s, and the second spider’s speed does not exceed $\epsilon$ mm/s. Show that the spiders always have a strategy to catch the ant regardless of the starting points of the ant and the spiders. Note: the two spiders can discuss a plan before the hunt starts and after seeing all three starting points, but cannot communicate during the hunt.

Two people, $A$ and $B$, play the game of blowing up a balloon. The balloon will explode only when the volume of the balloon $V>2014$ mL. $A$ blows in $1$ mL first, and then they takes turns blowing. It is agreed that the gas blown by each person must not be less than the gas blown by the other party last time and should not be more than twice the amount of gas the other party blew last time. The agreement is that the person who blows up the balloon loses. Who has a winning strategy ? Briefly explain it. (Do not consider the change in volume caused by the change in tension when the balloon is inflated).