Problem

Source: 2019 Brazil EGMO TST 4 / Cono Sur TST 1.4

Tags: combinatorics



Twenty players participated in a chess tournament. Each player faced every other player exactly once and each match ended with either player winning or a draw. In this tournament, it was noticed that for every match that ended in a draw, each of the other $18$ players won at least one of the two players involved in it. We also know that at least two games ended in a draw. Show that it is possible to name the players as $P_1, P_2, ...., P_{20}$ so that player $P_k$ beat player $P_{k+1}$, to each $k \in \{ 1, 2, 3,... , 19\}$.