Me. my math teacher said that there is some sort of pattern that will us understand how to win the game. here is what the question is:

you will be competing with other contestants for a grand prize of 1 million dollars. all of the contestants will form a circle around the host. starting at seat #1, the person to the left of that contestant seat #1 is out of the game. the next remaining contestant is in seat #3. the person left of that remaining contestant is out of the game. this pattern continues until there is one contestant remaining. the object is simple. determine what seat # you must sit on the circle in order to be the last contestant remaining. since you do not know how many contestants are on the show, you must come up with an explanation of how to win at this game.

you friends!

Let n = number of players

Drawing out each scenario is optional, but it helps visualize what is going on.

Let's play out scenarios for n = 2 through n = 12 to see what the pattern might be.

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n = 2 players

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Winner = seat #1

This is fairly trivial and boring as there is only one round and one elimination.

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n = 3 players

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #1

Winner = seat #3

Like with n = 2, this game is over in one round. For n = 4 and greater, we'll start to see multiple rounds.

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n = 4 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #3}

Start of Round 2

Seat #1 eliminates seat #3

End of Round 2

Winner = seat #1

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n = 5 players

Start of Round 1.

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 1.

Seats remaining = {seat #3, seat #5}

Start of Round 2.

Seat #3 eliminates seat #5

End of Round 2

Winner = seat #3

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n = 6

Start of round 1.

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #3, seat #5}

Start of round 2

Seat #1 eliminates seat #3

Seat #5 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 2

Winner = seat #5

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Up next is n = 7 players

Start of round 1.

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #3, seat #5, seat #7}

Start of round 2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #5

Seat #7 eliminates seat #3

End of Round 2

Winner = seat #7

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n = 8 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #8

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #3, seat #5, seat #7}

Start of round 2

Seat #1 eliminates seat #3

Seat #5 eliminates seat #7

End of Round 2

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #5}

Start of Round 3

Seat #1 eliminates seat #5

End of Round 3

Winner = seat #1

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n = 9 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #8

Seat #9 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #3, seat #5, seat #7, seat #9}

Start of round 2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #5

Seat #7 eliminates seat #9

End of Round 2

Seats remaining = {seat #3, seat #7}

Start of Round 3

Seat #3 eliminates seat #7

End of Round 3

Winner = seat #3

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n = 10 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #8

Seat #9 eliminates seat #10

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #3, seat #5, seat #7, seat #9}

Start of Round 2

Seat #1 eliminates seat #3

Seat #5 eliminates seat #7

Seat #9 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 2

Seats remaining = {seat #5, seat #9}

Start of Round 3

seat #5 eliminates seat #9

End of Round 3

Winner = seat #5

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n = 11 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #8

Seat #9 eliminates seat #10

Seat #11 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #3, seat #5, seat #7, seat #9, seat #11}

Start of Round 2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #5

Seat #7 eliminates seat #9

Seat #11 eliminates seat #3

End of Round 2

Seats remaining = {seat #7, seat #11}

Start of Round 3

Seat #7 eliminates seat #11

End of Round 3

Winner = seat #7

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n = 12 players

Start of Round 1

Seat #1 eliminates seat #2

Seat #3 eliminates seat #4

Seat #5 eliminates seat #6

Seat #7 eliminates seat #8

Seat #9 eliminates seat #10

Seat #11 eliminates seat #12

End of Round 1

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #3, seat #5, seat #7, seat #9, seat #11}

Start of Round 2

Seat #1 eliminates seat #3

Seat #5 eliminates seat #7

Seat #9 eliminates seat #11

End of Round 2

Seats remaining = {seat #1, seat #5, seat #9}

Start of Round 3

Seat #1 eliminates seat #5

Seat #9 eliminates seat #1

End of Round 3

Winner = seat #9

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Admittedly this is a lot of things to keep track of and it's easy to get lost. Hopefully the process is fairly straight forward even if it requires a lot of drawings.

Each pattern block is color coded to separate the start and stop of each sequence. Note the pattern of {1,3} then {1,3,5} then {1,3,5,7} then {1,3,5,7,9} and so on. The next pattern block would likely be {1,3,5,7,9,11}. This table will help you determine what seat you will want to sit in if you know how many players there are at the start. Of course you won't know ahead of time how many players there are, but when it comes to you picking your seat you can quickly look at the table (either on the paper or just something you memorize) and you can select the ideal seat based on what n is.