Tournament with n players

combinationscombinatoricssequences-and-series

A tournament consists of n players and all possible $C(n,2)= \frac{n(n-1)}{2}$ pairwise matches between them. There are no ties in a match: in any match, one of the two players wins. The score of a player is the number of matches she wins out of all her $(n − 1)$ matches in the tournament. Denote the score vector of the tournament as $s \equiv (s_1, \ldots , s_n)$ and assume without loss of generality $s_1 ≥ s_2 ≥ . . . ≥ s_n$. It is also given that for any $2 \le k \le n$, $s_1 + . . . + s_k \ge C(k, 2),_\ where_\ C(k, 2) = \frac{k(k−1)}{2}$

(a). I want to show that suppose $s_n = s_0,_\ s_{n−1} = s_0 +1, s_{n−2} = s_0 +2 _\ for_\ some_\ positive_\ integer _\ s_0, n \ge 3$.
Then $$ s_0 \leq \frac{(n-2)(n-3)}{2n}$$

(b). A tournament generate a score vector $s$ such that $$s_j -s_{j+1}=1_\ \forall j_\ \in {1,…,(n-1)}$$ What is the score vector in this tournament? For every player $j$, who does player $j$ beats in this tournament?

My approach

(a). We are given $3$ players with the lowest scores have scores $s_0 , s_0 +1, s_0 +2$. Since the remaining $n-3$ have the scores $ \geq s_0 +2$ therefore we can use the formula for sum of first $n$ terms. After that, I got stuck.

Best Answer

suppose $s_n = x$ and $s_{n-i} = x+i$ then adding their score vector we get $$nx + \frac{n(n-1)}{2} = \frac {n(n-1)}{2}$$

hence value of $x=0$. Therefore the score vector is $(s_1,..., s_n) = [ n-1, n-2,...0]$ Player $j$ beats all the players $i$ given that $i>j$

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