Problem

Source: 2023 South Russian Girls MO - Assara Juniors p4 / M2774 in no. 11-12 of Kvant, 2023

Tags: combinatorics, Coloring



In a $50 \times 50$ checkered square, each cell is painted in one of $100$ given colors so that all colors are present and it is impossible to cut a single-color domino from the square (i.e. a $1 \times 2$ rectangle). Galiia wants to recolor all the cells of one of the colors into another color (out of the given $100$ colors) so that this condition is preserved (i.e., it is still impossible to cut out a domino of the same color). Is it true that Galiia will definitely be able to do this?