Problem

Source: 43rd International Tournament of Towns, Senior A-Level P3, Fall 2021

Tags: combinatorics, Tournament of Towns



Grasshopper Gerald and his 2020 friends play leapfrog on a plane as follows. At each turn Gerald jumps over a friend so that his original point and his resulting point are symmetric with respect to this friend. Gerald wants to perform a series of jumps such that he jumps over each friend exactly once. Let us say that a point is achievable if Gerald can finish the 2020th jump in it. What is the maximum number $N{}$ such that for some initial placement of the grasshoppers there are just $N{}$ achievable points? Mikhail Svyatlovskiy