P306
projecteuler.net

Paper-strip Game

ℹ️Published on Sunday, 17th October 2010, 07:00 am; Solved by 1381;
Difficulty rating: 55%

The following game is a classic example of Combinatorial Game Theory:

Two players start with a strip of n white squares and they take alternate turns.
On each turn, a player picks two contiguous white squares and paints them black.
The first player who cannot make a move loses.

  • n=1: No valid moves, so the first player loses automatically.
  • n=2: Only one valid move, after which the second player loses.
  • n=3: Two valid moves, but both leave a situation where the second player loses.
  • n=4: Three valid moves for the first player, who is able to win the game by painting the two middle squares.
  • n=5: Four valid moves for the first player (shown below in red), but no matter what the player does, the second player (blue) wins.
p306_pstrip.gif

So, for 1n5, there are 3 values of n for which the first player can force a win.
Similarly, for 1n50, there are 40 values of n for which the first player can force a win.

For 1n1000000, how many values of n are there for which the first player can force a win?



Soluzione

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