[Guest]

Two men are standing around a round table. They have infinite cigarettes and playing a game so that each of them will place a cigarette on the table in turn. (one by one). Untill to a point that thereis no enough place on the table to place an additional cigarette. The guy who places the last cigarette will won. If you were the first player what would your strategy be?

ps:overlapping is banned.

[Guest]

Two men are standing around a round table. They have infinite cigarettes and playing a game so that each of them will place a cigarette on the table in turn. (one by one). Untill to a point that thereis no enough place on the table to place an additional cigarette. The guy who places the last cigarette will won. If you were the first player what would your strategy be?

ps:overlapping is banned.

It would depend on dimensions of cigarettes and diameter of table. With the give information, there is no way to be able to determine whether there will be an even or odd # of cigarettes by a given pattern. There are several ways to do it, but if I am going first and I want to go last as well, I need to know how many cigarettes I can make the table accomodate.

[bonanova]

Two men are standing around a round table. They have infinite cigarettes and playing a game so that each of them will place a cigarette on the table in turn. (one by one). Untill to a point that thereis no enough place on the table to place an additional cigarette. The guy who places the last cigarette will won. If you were the first player what would your strategy be?

ps:overlapping is banned.

Place the first cigarette with its midpoint at the center of the circle.

Every placement your opponent makes after that, place a radially symmetric cigarette.

Same as if you held his cigarette still and rotated the table 180 degrees.

In that way you can match all of his moves and make the last successful placement.

[Prof. Templeton]

In the center of the table. After the other man places his, I'd place my next symmetric to his (opposite). This would guarantee I always have a move left.

bn beat me.

[Guest]

Since the op doesn't specify "how" you put the ciggy on the table, if I were last, I'm sure I could find a small enough space on the table to put the last ciggarette standing up instead of laying down....right?

[Guest]

Place the first cigarette with its midpoint at the center of the circle.

Every placement your opponent makes after that, place a radially symmetric cigarette.

Same as if you held his cigarette still and rotated the table 180 degrees.

In that way you can match all of his moves and make the last successful placement.

An odd corollary (pardon the pun) to this is that IF you place the first cigarette in the center of the table, THEN the number of cigarettes that the table can hold will be odd.

That seems counter-intuitive, but if the mirror-image move theory is correct it has to be so.

Of course you have to be able to accurately place your symmetrical moves, and your hand might have to be steady near the edges, but the theory seems sound.

[Jiminy Cricket]

Since the op doesn't specify "how" you put the ciggy on the table, if I were last, I'm sure I could find a small enough space on the table to put the last ciggarette standing up instead of laying down....right?

How 'bout if

your opponent was placing ALL of his cigarettes in this manner, and did not lay any of them down flat?

[Guest]

Place the first cigarette with its midpoint at the center of the circle.

Every placement your opponent makes after that, place a radially symmetric cigarette.

Same as if you held his cigarette still and rotated the table 180 degrees.

In that way you can match all of his moves and make the last successful placement.

This is the answer.

[Guest]

An odd corollary (pardon the pun) to this is that IF you place the first cigarette in the center of the table, THEN the number of cigarettes that the table can hold will be odd.

That seems counter-intuitive, but if the mirror-image move theory is correct it has to be so.

Of course you have to be able to accurately place your symmetrical moves, and your hand might have to be steady near the edges, but the theory seems sound.

That's only if you follow the mirror image pattern of placing. I can imagine other none-symetrical patterns that might leave an even number - eg (on a table that can fit 9 cigarettes tightly packed:

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Imagine the lines are a bit longer, so you can't fit any cigarettes in between

[Guest]

Smoke your first and tap the ash over the full table.