Questions tagged [cards]
For puzzles centered around playing cards. For questions about card games themselves, visit our sister site Board & Card Games Stack Exchange.
73
questions
14
votes
4answers
718 views
What happened today? Asked the magician
Yesterday I went to a magic show and I was part of a clever trick. First of all, the magician arranged 36 cards in a 4 x 9 grid as follows:
Then they called me on the stage. I felt a little bit ...
4
votes
2answers
335 views
The 7 face up/down card
Note: This puzzle is a very old puzzle I got from the Internet, however I changed it a bit to be more interesting.
INSTRUCTIONS
You have got 7 blank cards. You are playing with a friend of yours. Your ...
5
votes
2answers
367 views
Starred, as to the crew's aid
The flavour text (except for the puzzle's name) is not a hint, but a true story
I didn't really have any ideas for a puzzle, but my everyday life gave me one. I think, the puzzle could be better if I ...
4
votes
1answer
89 views
Spider Solitaire - maximum number of cards in a single column
What is the maximum number of cards you can have in a single column of four-suit Spider Solitaire?
The diagram below has 11 cards in column 2, more than any other column. Obviously, the correct answer ...
7
votes
5answers
1k views
The Great Houdini's awesome card guessing trick (2)
The Great Houdini is performing again! Everybody wants to see the famous magician and the magic show is sold out. Today Houdini shows the following sophisticated trick:
A guy from the audience ...
6
votes
0answers
175 views
There are 49 cards here. Figure out what the seven facedown cards are and what position they're in
So here's the problem
"There are 49 cards here. Can you figure out what the seven facedown cards are and what position they're in?"
I have tried about everything in my math tool belt to try ...
43
votes
5answers
30k views
A five card trick - How does it work?
At a party last night, my friends Alice and Bob did a magic trick. Any ideas how it worked?
Alice shuffled a pack of cards, and asked me to take five. I looked at them. She put the rest of the pack ...
1
vote
0answers
61 views
Spider Solitaire - Minimum Guaranteed Turnovers
Consider the following game-state in Spider Solitaire. Although this game is not the most popular compared to others
(e.g. poker, chess, backgammon etc) I assume the reader is familiar with the basic ...
31
votes
2answers
1k views
Alice and Bob invent a game
The rain was still falling in Wales, and Alice and Bob were terribly bored of having to stay inside the caravan. With just a deck of cards to entertain them they had played all of the card games in ...
19
votes
1answer
494 views
Captain Pun plays cards
Last night I was playing a game of cards with my good friend Captain Pun and his wife.
All of a sudden, partway through a round, he threw down a card that bore this design:
Colour-blind-friendly ...
38
votes
4answers
3k views
Multilayer Image Steganography
Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dan are playing a card game. After they all show their cards, Bob notes that by exchanging two cards the order of the players would be reversed; that is, the player with the ...
24
votes
2answers
1k views
Minigolf Solitaire
Golf is a form of patience (solitaire) in which you must remove cards from several tableaus, leaving as few as possible. Today, though, we're doing a round of Minigolf instead. Unlike Golf, there are ...
0
votes
0answers
297 views
A Logician's Game of UNO Flip
Two players are in the middle of an ongoing one-on-one game of UNO Flip, with all its standard rules in effect.
Play is currently Light Side Up. It is Player B's turn. Player A has 3 cards remaining, ...
6
votes
1answer
439 views
Mathematical Coincidence
A friend came up to me today with a deck of cards, and put these 6 into a group:
2 3 5 7 J K
The other 7 values went into another group:
A 4 6 8 9 10 Q
He then challenged me to find the reason ...
2
votes
0answers
196 views
What is the name for this meta magic-trick? [closed]
In his book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking Daniel Dennett describes a system of layering magic tricks in the following way:
There are some effectsāthey can hardly be called tricksā...
7
votes
1answer
821 views
Queens full of jacks
(Note: I doubt that this puzzle is complex enough to post it here, but I still took a try.)
There are 3 queens and 2 jacks (a full-house combination from poker) taken from a deck with standard suits, ...
4
votes
2answers
2k views
98 Cards: Optimal Strategy with Rule of Ten's
I recently found the game "98 Cards" by VdH and wondered if there is an optimal strategy to play it.
Rules:
There is only one player.
Cards with each of the numbers $2$ to $99$ are ...
7
votes
2answers
822 views
Alice and Bob play at cards
To pass the time Alice and Bob play a simple game of chance where cards are drawn in pairs from a shuffled standard 52-card deck. If two red cards are drawn Alice wins the round. If two black cards ...
0
votes
3answers
144 views
Approximate this big number using a binomial [closed]
Mr. Magico is a greater believer in this number:
$$2^{50}=1,125,899,906,842,624ā¬$$
He also like to play cards, although he isn't fussy about the size of his deck, and nor does he care how many ...
3
votes
4answers
382 views
Hikerās Cabin Mystery | Pt. VII
Congratulations to @GarethMcCaughan for his victory on the long unsolved Part II of this mystery! Kudos!
Part VIII will hold a not-so-fun twist! Solve this one quickly, and we can get to it!
New ...
4
votes
4answers
219 views
What is the minimum High Card Points needed for a partnership to be able to claim all 13 tricks in Bridge?
Assume you have basic knowledge of how a contract bridge game plays. There are 40 total HCPs in a set of cards. 4 for each Ace, 3 for each King, 2 for each Queen and 1 for each Jack.
What is the ...
13
votes
1answer
271 views
A retroanalysis problem in bridge
This is an entry into the 29th fortnightly topic challenge - Retrograde Analysis.
You're passing a bridge table when one of the players (South) is called away suddenly. He gives you his hand and says ...
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
3,7593 gold badges20 silver badges37 bronze badges
10
votes
1answer
545 views
Perfect riffle shuffles
Take a deck of cards (with indexed position from 1 (top) to 52 (bottom)) and perform a perfect riffle shuffle, such that the top card (1) is still on top and the bottom (52) is still on the bottom.
...
3
votes
4answers
208 views
Randomly selecting cards using 6-sided dice
There is a pile of $5\leq N\leq15$ cards.
$x=3$ or $6\leq N$ cards need to be randomly chosen from this pile (uniform distribution).
To do this any number of $6$-sided dice can be rolled any number ...
7
votes
1answer
305 views
A message sent to me in spell cards
My brother went missing a few days ago. No one has seen him since then. The day he went missing, I saw the following arrays of my new Dungeons and Dragons spell cards. I didnāt think much of it then, ...
3
votes
1answer
140 views
make a sum with cards
Take the numbered diamond cards in a standard deck, that is those from 2 to 10. You may use some of them to form a sum: for example 23+45=68. What is the maximum result you may obtain? I hoped there ...
1
vote
1answer
1k views
How many Dobble symbols are there? [closed]
The game of Dobble (will edit in a link later) involves a set of bespoke playing cards covered in symbols or small pictures - a dog, an arrow, a pencil, a tree etc.
Each card contains eight such ...
10
votes
7answers
609 views
A cooperative guessing game - Guess your order and card
6 players sitting in a circle and each assigned a card among 2 Hearts, 3 Hearts, ..., Ace Hearts (i.e. any of the Hearts cards). Holding her card above his forehead (i.e. Indian Poker fashion), each ...
1
vote
0answers
127 views
The magic trick [duplicate]
I am here to tell you about two brothers that were doing a magic trick. But not the kind with smoke and mirrors but just a deck of cards and the magic of the human mind. Will you be able to match the ...
0
votes
1answer
136 views
A complex problem from Garena 2017 challenge [duplicate]
The problem is quite complex and I would really like to know the solution.
7
votes
3answers
2k views
Pick one card magic
At a dinner last night, my friend Lan did a magic trick. Any ideas how it worked?
First, Lan took a number of cards out of a 52-card deck. I don't know exactly the number of card.
To be sure that the ...
5
votes
1answer
227 views
Who's the winner of this card game?
During a round of a card game big two, two players decide to show off their hands.
The 1st player has ā„3 ā„4 ā„4 ā„6 ā„6 ā„8 ā„8 ā„K, and
the 2nd player has ā 7 ā 9 ā 9.
It's the 1st player's turn, and he can ...
11
votes
2answers
1k views
The Fitch Cheney Card Trick Extended
First, here is the original question which was also discussed here in Puzzling Beta:
This is a two-person card trick. At the initial stage, the magician leaves the room. The magician's assistant ...
5
votes
5answers
809 views
Card trick with two assistants giving two cards each from a 53 card pack (with joker)
A long time ago, I saw on a website (with a grec sounding name i can't remember), a card trick I've passed a long time trying to solve. I hope it has never been posted there and i'm sure it will ...
3
votes
2answers
199 views
How the best card can I choose?
Me and Varun playing a game of cards (standard deck of 52 cards). In which we distributed 5 cards to each other. Edit: We have seen each other's cards. We have to put the cards in a line one by one ...
8
votes
1answer
270 views
4
votes
1answer
473 views
In the three-card monte, can a logical principle be applied to increase the odds?
Assuming the game is played without cheating, in the three-card monte, can a logical approach increase the player's chance of beating the house?
At first glance it would seem to be unlikely but a ...
17
votes
6answers
1k views
Unique representation ID for 5-card poker hand using combination without sorting
There is a deck of 52 playing cards (e.g. poker cards). Assign every card a unique number (ID) at will. Every combination of 5 of these cards (a "hand") shall be represented by a unique result number, ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
6 Cards, Top to Bottom
The six cards shown below were turned face down, "shuffled" (i.e.. re-arranged), and
put in a pile, one on top of each other. Each card has an obvious numeric value. In
addition, the "J", "Q", and ...
16
votes
10answers
3k views
5 people each have 5 equal cards
A competent logician is playing cards with four of his friends, so that there are a total of 5 people sat around the table. Each player has the same 5 cards, showing A, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Ace being low). ...
4
votes
3answers
559 views
Dr. G's Interesting Theorem on Playing Cards
Dr. G has spent his last weekend with analyzing $n$ number of cards which are numbered from $1$ to $n$. He has a fair shuffling machine for his cards and while playing and drawing some cards, he uses ...
4
votes
2answers
311 views
Optimal solution to a modified poker game
Note: Knowledge of the poker game Texas Hold-em is (probably) needed in order to answer this question.
You and a friend (only two people are playing) are playing a standard game of Texas Hold-em but ...
11
votes
5answers
2k views
Sorting cards using max 3 stacks
You have a stack of N cards numbered from 1 to N in random order.
You want to sort the cards in ascending order using the following procedure:
Your initial stack is stack 1.
You distribute the cards ...
4
votes
2answers
350 views
Card Passing Game
13 friends are sitting around a table. They shuffle a half-deck of cards, consisting of only the black cards of a standard deck, and deal out two cards to each person.
There are then a series of ...
3
votes
1answer
187 views
Gambling with the gambler [closed]
You are walking on the street and notice a guy gambling with some other guys and you start to watch.
The game principle is pretty easy. There is a standard 52-card deck and it is being shuffled every ...
4
votes
3answers
1k views
In a Guess The Color game, what's the optimal strategy?
Here's a one-player card game:
We begin with a shuffled card deck
The player try to guess the color of the card at the top (black or red)
If the player guess right, he can keep the card. Else the ...
9
votes
1answer
227 views
2 of 4 cards for 1 die
These are equivalent to using using a deck of 4 cards
to emulate a 6-sided die.
A. Assign integer values to a, b, c, d
so that the 6 possible
&...
13
votes
1answer
2k views
Find the winning strategy for this card game
Nine cards numbered 1 through 9 are kept facing up on a table. Alice and Bob are playing a game wherein they pick up cards one at a time, alternatively. The first person to have three cards with sum ...
4
votes
1answer
871 views
Optimal game of Bluff (not the wikipedia one)
Rules
Basics
52 well shuffled cards are dealt equally to both players. Player 1 starts the first hand. The game consists of a number of rounds, which are played as follows. On each round, players ...
9
votes
3answers
944 views
Hidden Message: Hidden in The Cards
The image below carry a hidden message. The image alone is not enough, you'll need to use the hints to uncover the hidden message. All the information needed to solve the puzzle is already given (as ...
