Problem

Source: CGMO 2007 P8

Tags: function, combinatorics unsolved, combinatorics



In a round robin chess tournament each player plays every other player exactly once. The winner of each game gets $ 1$ point and the loser gets $ 0$ points. If the game is tied, each player gets $ 0.5$ points. Given a positive integer $ m$, a tournament is said to have property $ P(m)$ if the following holds: among every set $ S$ of $ m$ players, there is one player who won all her games against the other $ m-1$ players in $ S$ and one player who lost all her games against the other $ m - 1$ players in $ S$. For a given integer $ m \ge 4$, determine the minimum value of $ n$ (as a function of $ m$) such that the following holds: in every $ n$-player round robin chess tournament with property $ P(m)$, the final scores of the $ n$ players are all distinct.