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Problem 532
AMC 12 late, AIME early Combinatorics Difficulty 5.0 Find the answer
There are 300 matches in a box. On a turn, it is allowed to take no more than half of the matches in the box. The player who cannot make a move loses.
A number or a short expression. Fractions can be typed as 3/2, and spacing doesn't matter.
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Official solution
The first player wins. Winning positions are those in which there are 2n - 1 matches left in the box.
The first move is to leave 255 matches.
Source: NuminaMath-1.5,
licensed Apache-2.0.
Statement reproduced verbatim; metadata (topic, difficulty, ordering) added by this project.