The motivation for this question came from a game introduced in a math(s) class, and so I thought it would be interesting to see if one could develop a winning strategy.
Let $S$ be a multiset $[a_1,a_2,\dots,a_n]$, with $ a_i\in\mathbb{N}=\{0,1,2,3,\dots\}$. A game is played on $S$ where two players take turns to play single moves where a move consists of the following:
Replace an element $a\in S$ with $b,c\in\mathbb{N}$, such that $b+c<a$.
The last player to (be able to) make a (legal) move loses the game, i.e: s/he leaves each element of $S$ as zero.
This can be though of (and indeed was originally presented to me) as a misère Nim-like game where the elements of $S$ indicate the inital number of objects in $n$ heaps, and, where in normal Nim a move consists of removing some number of objects from the end of a heap, instead in this game you can remove a contiguous run of objects from anywhere in the heap, potentially separating the heap into two separate, non-empty heaps.
Given the simplicity, I imagine there exists a winning strategy, for the first or second player depending on the initial $S$. However, I have never studied games mathematically, and don't really how to go about development of a winning strategy - this is my first point of enquiry. The second (or maybe zeroth) being: is this equivalent to an existing (well-understood?) mathematical game?
After some intial analysis of my own, I determined $[1,1,1]$, $[2,2]$, and $[1,1,2,2]$ is won by the second player, and thus $[1,2,5]$ is won by the first player.
I think a player wins if they leave a position consisting of either an odd number of 1s or numbers, not all 1s, with zero nim sum.
Proof If left such a position with zero nim sum but not all 1s then your move will leave a position with not all 1s and non-zero nim sum.
If left a position with not all 1s and non-zero nim sum then make the nim sum zero unless the position consists of 1s apart from one number. In that case reduce the larger number to zero/one to make the nim sum non-zero.