Fix an integer . Two players, Ana and Banana, play the following game of numbers: Initially, some integer gets written on the blackboard. Then they take moves in turn, with Ana beginning. A player making a move erases the number just written on the blackboard and replaces it by some number with that is coprime to . The first player who cannot move anymore loses.
An integer is called good if Banana has a winning strategy when the initial number is , and bad otherwise.
Consider two integers with the property that each prime number divides if and only if it divides . Prove that either both and are good or both are bad.
Solution
For convenience, let denote the move of erasing and writing ; by the rules, we must have and .
Claim A. If is a good number, and is coprime to , then is a bad number.
Proof. Because Ana only needs to choose , and then copy Banana's winning strategy starting from .
Claim B. Any two good numbers cannot be coprime.
Proof. This follows immediately from Claim A and B.
Claim 1. If is a good number and , then is a good number.
Proof. If is a bad number, this means Ana can make the move with being a good number. However, , but and are both good numbers, which contradicts Claim C.
Claim 2. If is a bad number, then is also a bad number.
Proof. being a bad number means Ana can make the move with being a good number, but is clearly coprime to , so from we know is a bad number.
Claim 3. If is a prime and is a bad number, then is also a bad number.
Proof. If not, then there exists a smallest bad number such that is a good number. We derive a contradiction as follows.
1. Since is a bad number, Ana can make the move , where is a good number. It is easy to see that , otherwise would be a bad number, a contradiction. But we know , so . Let , where .
2. Note that is impossible, because if , then ; and since , Ana can make the move , so would be a bad number, a contradiction. Hence , so there must exist a smallest positive integer such that .
3. Based on the fact that and are coprime and is a good number, by Claim B, must be a bad number.
4. By the minimality of , we have , so . Hence, by the minimality of , must be a good number (because is a good number). By the same argument, must also all be good numbers.
5. But and are both good numbers, so by Claim B, , which contradicts and . This completes the proof.
Now let denote the set of prime factors of that are less than or equal to . In what follows, we call two numbers similar if and only if . To prove the original statement, we only need to show: if are similar, then are both good or both bad simultaneously. Note that is similar to both and at the same time, so this is equivalent to: if is similar to some multiple of it, then are both good or both bad simultaneously.
proof If not, then there exists a smallest such that there exists a factor of it such that differ in being good or bad. By the Claims above, such a does not exist.