Prelims · 8 Mental Ability · 8.15 Logic puzzles and problem solving

8.15.5 Tournaments, games and strategy: knock-out, round robin and last-move wins

Tournament questions are counting — every knock-out match removes one player and every pair meets once in a league — while strategy games are won by always handing the opponent a losing position, found by working backwards from the end.

  • APPSC Group 2 · Prelims
  • Standard level
  • 7 min read
  • Full course

Key terms

  • knock-out tournament
  • byes
  • rounds
  • round robin
  • league
  • double round robin
  • handshakes
  • points table
  • take-away game
  • last move wins
  • misere
  • race to a target
  • key numbers
  • Nim
  • XOR
  • winning strategy

What this note covers

  1. Core factsFoundation
  2. ExplainedStandard
  3. DeeperAdvanced
  4. Common trapsFoundation
  5. Quick revisionFoundation

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