This game is a variation of the old Eastern game "Nim".

Starting with a deck of cards, two players take turns removing cards from the deck. During his turn a player may take one, two or three cards. The winner is the person who takes the last card (or cards) from the deck.

There is a strategy that the first player can follow in order to assure his victory, but this strategy will not work for all the deck configurations.

What is this strategy, which of the following decks will it work for, and why?

• 32 cards (7s through Aces)
• 36 cards (6s through Aces)
• 52 cards (2s through Aces)
• 54 cards (2s through Aces + 2 Jokers)

This is a good game. It's quite amazing to find this game pop up in many different cultures.

Posted by cges on 2002-12-13 05:18:50