Problem

Source: Brazil EGMO TST 2023 #3

Tags: combinatorics



There are $n$ cards. Max and Lewis play, alternately, the following game Max starts the game, he removes exactly $1$ card, in each round the current player can remove any quantity of cards, from $1$ card to $t+1$ cards, which $t$ is the number of removed cards by the previous player, and the winner is the player who remove the last card. Determine all the possible values of $n$ such that Max has the winning strategy.