Avoid losing the game
Source: EGMO 2023/4
April 16, 2023
EGMO 2023EGMOcombinatoricsgameilostthegame
Problem Statement
Turbo the snail sits on a point on a circle with circumference . Given an infinite sequence of positive real numbers , Turbo successively crawls distances around the circle, each time choosing to crawl either clockwise or counterclockwise.
Determine the largest constant with the following property: for every sequence of positive real numbers with for all , Turbo can (after studying the sequence) ensure that there is some point on the circle that it will never visit or crawl across.