Question

This is a game played for 2 people: There are 3 groups of stones. One with 15, another with 10, and the last group has 20. You split the groups until a person cannot split anything anymore (that person loses) ex: the group with 10 becomes 1 and 9 then the next person can split the 9 to 4 and 5. *Note the split numbers do not have to be equal. So you finish the game ending with all the piles of stone ending with 45 1s. Why does it take you 42 moves to finish the game (45 - 3 because you started with 3 piles)? Does the 1st or 2nd person win the game?

Answer 1

it takes 42 moves because it takes exactly 9 moves to split the pile of 10, 14 for pile of 15, and 19 for pile of 20

42 is even num of moves so 2nd person makes last move....thus 2nd person wins