There are 2012 lamps arranged on a table. Two persons play the following game. In each move the player flips the switch of one lamp, but he must never get back an arrangement of the lit lamps that has already been on the table. A player who cannot move loses. Which player has a winning strategy?
Answer: the first player has a winning strategy.
. The first player can pick one lamp and keep switching it on and off during the whole game. The second player cannot switch this particular lamp, he always has to switch some other lamp so that the arrangement of the other lamps becomes different from any that has already been on the table. So the first player always has a move, and the second player eventually runs out of the possible moves.