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Combinatorics Difficulty 6.4 National Olympiad Prove it Estonia

An equilateral triangle with side length 33 is divided into 99 equilateral triangles with side length 11. An integer from 11 to 1010 is written into every point that is a vertex of a small triangle (colored vertices on the figure), such that all numbers are written exactly once. For every small triangle, the sum of the numbers in its three vertices is written inside it. Prove that at least three of those sums are greater than 1111.

Figure 1

Solution

In a triangle, which has 1010 at one vertex, the sum is at least 1313. If 1010 is not at one of the vertices of the large triangle, the number of triangles with sum greater than 1212 is at least 33 and the problem is solved. If 1010 is at the vertex of the large triangle, then look, where is the number 99. If 99 does not lie at a vertex of the large triangle, then there are at least 33 small triangles, with a sum of at least 1212, and the problem is solved. If 99 is at a vertex of the large triangle, then look, where is the number 88. If 88 does not lie at the vertex of a large triangle, then it is at a vertex of at least 33 small triangles. In at least two of them the sum is at least 1212, and as at most one of these can overlap with one of the triangles found earlier, the problem is solved. If 88 is at a vertex of the large triangle, then either the sum in that triangle is at least 1212, meaning the problem is solved, or the other vertices in the triangle have numbers 11 and 22. In the last case, the numbers 33, 44 and 55 are the smallest numbers whose positions are not set, but these give a sum of 1212. So, we can simply choose any triangle whose vertices we have not looked at yet as our third triangle (there are three of these triangles).

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