Gluing a 100*100 chessboard - who wins?
Source: All-Russian Olympiad 2006 finals, problem 9.7
May 7, 2006
combinatorics proposedcombinatorics
Problem Statement
A chessboard is cut into dominoes ( rectangles). Two persons play the following game: At each turn, a player glues together two adjacent cells (which were formerly separated by a cut-edge). A player loses if, after his turn, the chessboard becomes connected, i. e. between any two cells there exists a way which doesn't intersect any cut-edge. Which player has a winning strategy - the starting player or his opponent?