Problem

Source: 239 School Open MO, 2023, Senior league, Problem 1

Tags: combinatorics, winning strategy



There are $n{}$ wise men in a hall and everyone sees each other. Each man will wear a black or white hat. The wise men should simultaneously write down on their piece of paper a guess about the color of their hat. If at least one does not guess, they will all be executed. The wise men can discuss a strategy before the test and they know that the layout of the hats will be chosen randomly from the set of all $2^n$ layouts. They want to choose their strategy so that the number of layouts for which everyone guesses correctly is as high as possible. What is this number equal to?