Winning strategy for a game

Question

All positive integers from $1$ to $n$ are written in a row in increasing order. Two players, $A$ and $B$ are playing a game where they each take turns erasing two consecutive numbers from the row and replacing them either by their product or their sum. Player $A$ wins if the last remaining number is odd, otherwise player $B$ wins. If player $A$ takes the first turn, find all possible values of $n$ for which player $A$ has a winning strategy.

This is a problem from a mock contest of last week. Here is my progress in solving the problem:

The game ends after $n-1$ turns. Since player $A$ takes the first turn, he can take the last turn for even $n$s. He can win the game if he is left with two odd numbers (by taking their product) or one odd and one even number (by taking their sum) before the last turn. But he can't win the game if he is somehow left with two even numbers before the last turn.

But for odd $n$s, player $B$ takes the last turn. He can make an even number in the last turn when he is left with two even numbers (by taking their sum or product) or two odd numbers (by taking their sum) or one odd and one even number (by taking their product) before the last turn. Thus, player $B$ can always win for odd $n$s.

Hence, player $A$ can win only for even numbers but not for all even numbers. I further claim that he has a winning strategy only if $n\equiv 2 (\bmod 4)$ noticing the cases $n=2$ and $n=4$. But I couldn't prove this.

So, I currently need a proof to the claim. Also, some other methods to solve the problem are welcome.

Edit: I made a mistake in the case $n=4$. So, my above claim is not correct.

Answer 1

First note that we can think of the row as a row of $0$'s and $1$'s because we only care about pairity.
Let $n$ be the length of the row.
Claim:
$1)$. if $n$ is even and $A$ begins, than $A$ wins.
$2)$. if $n$ is odd and $B$ begins, than $A$ wins.

Note that $1)$ is enough for us for the problem, but we will prove both $1$ and $2$ simultaneously by induction on $n$.

The base cases $n=1,2,3$ are trivial. Suppose now the claim holds for $1,2,...,n-1$ and let's prove it for $n$.
If $n$ is even, the row is of the form $1,0,1,0,1,0,....,1,0$ and we may take the last pair of $(1,0)$ and make it a $1$. By induction hypothesis, since now it is $B$'s turn, $A$ wins.
If $n$ is odd and $B$ begins, the row is of the form $1,0,1,0,1,0,....,1,0,1$.
Player $B$ might pick a pair of the form $(1,0)$ or a pair of the form $(0,1)$, and replace this pair with a $0$ or a $1$. Note that doesn't matter what pair he chose to replace, there is either a $1$ right before it or a $1$ right after it: there is a $1$ after each pair of the form $(1,0)$ and there is a $1$ before each pair of the form $(0,1)$. Therefore the two numbers $B$ chose to replace are part of $3$ consecutive numbers in the row, which are $1,0,1$ (and $B$ chose either the first two or the last two of those three). Doesn't matter what $B$ did, we can make the $1,0,1$ that $B$ chose his pair from a $1$. For example, if $B$ chose the first two and made them a $0$, the $1,0,1$ became a $0,1$, which $A$ can make a $1$ from. Therefore, after $A$'s second turn, the difference from the original row is that a $1,0,1$ was replaced by a $1$. Now, since it is $B$'s turn now, by induction hypothesis $A$ wins.

Answer 2

We work modulo two. Let $n$ be even, and let $A$ start and play by adding the last two numbers, so that the remained numbers are in a "word" (of residues modulo two)... $$\ 1010\dots 01\ .$$ Now $B$ plays, and we show that $A$ can play again so that the pattern is kept. Indeed, $B$ plays so that the change appears in a subword either as $010\to 0x$, or $010\to x0$, or $101\to 1x$, or $101\to x1$. Here $x$ is a reside mod two, either $0$, or $1$. Then $A$ plays, changing the change of $B$, as follows: $$ \begin{aligned} &010\overset B\longrightarrow 0x\overset A\longrightarrow 0 =0\cdot x\ ,\\ &010\overset B\longrightarrow x0\overset A\longrightarrow 0 =x\cdot 0\ ,\\ &101\overset B\longrightarrow 1x\overset A\longrightarrow 1 \ni\{1\cdot x,1+x\}\ ,\\ &101\overset B\longrightarrow x1\overset A\longrightarrow 1 \ni\{1+x, 1\cdot x\}\ . \end{aligned} $$ So $A$ can always play so that when $3$ numbers remain, the pattern (mod two) is $101$, and from the above, when one numbers remains, the pattern (mod two) is $1$.