A 'Nim' variation

[DrJones]

Nim is a well-known game usually played with three heaps of elements, in which players are required to take any number of elements from any single heap. The player which takes the last element loses the game.

There have been many variations of this game, limiting the number of elements a player can take, or the number/size of the heaps. However, there has been found a simple winning strategy for all of them.

I was wondering if there's a general winning strategy for any kind of Nim games, so I came up with this 2-dimensional variation.

1. The start position is a 10x10 array of elements, like the following:

[Lucky Wizard]

That game's actually been proposed before; it's called Tac Tix.

In chapter 15 of Martin Gardner's "Hexaflexagons and other Mathematical Diversions" he discusses both Nim and Tac Tix. For nim, he discusses a simple strategy that works regardless of how many heaps or elements there are.

For Tac Tix, he says there's no simple strategy, and that it is very difficult to analyze 4x4, so 10x10 is no doubt even more difficult.

[DrJones]

Thank you very much, your answer surpassed my expectations.

I'm surprised that you even know the chapter's number. Do you have the book, or it just appeared on a web search?

[Lucky Wizard]

Yeah, I have the book (it was in this room actually).

By the way, Piet Hein invented Tac Tix. And by the way, people have undertaken the task of analyzing 4x4 Tac Tix; the second player has the win in that.