June 2–June 8, 2009

Problem

Two players, Alphonse and Beatrice, take turns removing marbles from a jar initially containing 500 marbles. The player who takes the last marble wins. The catch is that on each turn, the number of marbles that is withdrawn must be a power of two. Is there a winning strategy for either of the players?

Solution

here

List of solvers

Huy Hoang-Nguyen, Matt Inouye (undergrad); Koopa Koo (graduate); Gary Raymond (staff); Chaitanya Rachabattuni, Peiyush Jain, Hai Bin Chang, Patrick Tam, Justin Shih, Lloyd Sakazasi (outside).

Huy Huang-Nguyen wins the prize!