The three colour hat guessing game on cycle graphs (Q510358)

Summary: We study a cooperative game in which each member of a team of \(N\) players, wearing coloured hats and situated at the vertices of the cycle graph \(C_N\), is guessing their own hat colour merely on the basis of observing the hats worn by their two neighbours without exchanging the information. Each hat can have one of three colours. A predetermined guessing strategy is winning if it guarantees at least one correct individual guess for every assignment of colours. We prove that a winning strategy exists if and only if \(N\) is divisible by 3 or \(N=4\). This asymmetric game is an example of relational system using incomplete information about an unpredictable situation, where at least one participant has to act properly.