PoTD Solutions - 6th June ------ ### 1. Systems - Easy unordered_map works on hashing. Due to collisions, the worst case access time becomes O(n), otherwise, the amortized time is O(1). ### 2. Puzzles - Medium #### **You Should Never Go First** N-Nim usually refers to a game of Nim with 2 piles of $N$ sticks each. Recall that in Nim the person who cannot pick a stick loses. We will prove this by induction. Assertion: If the state of game is $(i, i)$, the person to move loses. If the state is $(0,0)$, it is obvious. Now suppose this holds for all $i < N$. Clearly, if the state of game is $(N, N)$, the person to move can change state to $(p, N)$, where $0 \le p < N$. The other player can simply remove $N-p$ sticks from the larger pile to get to $(p, p)$. As $p < N$, the first player now loses. > ### Bonus > Prove that if there are $k$-piles of $N$ sticks each, iff $k$ is odd it is beneficial to go first. > **Solution:** Use XOR ### 3. CP - Hard https://usaco.org/current/data/sol_262144_platinum_open16.html