Kittens Game: Combinatorics Mafia - Signups (12/12)

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#121

I mean, I’m in this game, and I have negative time (two essays, four discussion posts, an Oxford trip, an interview for my dual-degree program, and a partridge in a pear tree).

1 Like
#122

Eh whatever this is like the one thing I can do on my phone
/in

#123

I am probably making a grave mistake

#124

I did promise SDA the last slot because I took a while to get back to him on his hydra question but if he doesn’t want it you’re in

3 Likes
#125

K

#126

It’s for the better

#127

ombinatorics

2 Likes
#128

they should make solving this setup a putnam problem next year

3 Likes
#129

it would be easier to understand than this year’s game theory one

2 Likes
#130

what the problem was asking wasn’t too bad if you know what the parity of a set means

solving it idk, I haven’t seen the solution for when N is odd

#131

i understood what it was asking but we had a long argument over lunch about it

3 Likes
#132

I wasn’t fully sure, but my guess of what it meant was correct
I didn’t attempt it though until like, the very end so I didn’t submit anything for that problem

#133

i correctly guessed that bob had a guaranteed win for all n but my attempt at getting there through induction was so bullshit that i didn’t get any points for it

3 Likes
#134

wow this filled quick

1 Like
#135

Some say its because of setup, perhaps.

There is also that burnout to contribute this reluctance

3 Likes
#136

I can see an (informal) proof for when N is even, where you pair 1 and 2, 3 and 4, etc., then Bob always picks the remaining number in the pair that Alice just picked
this forces the parity of the set to be even

for odds though I have no idea

#137

Yeah, that question was awful because it could mean, like, literally anything.
Perhaps words mean different things if you actually do past Putnam exams.

#138

wdym it could mean literally anything

1 Like
#139

i think the official putnam answer was, ironically enough, based on combinatorics (something something permutations)

1 Like
#140

The question is horribly vague, and I remember trying it and getting a completely wrong solution based on a faulty understanding of what the question was referring to.
And even after seeing the intended solution, I don’t understand how I was expected to get that from the wording.