Questions tagged [strategy]
A puzzle whose solution is a methodological plan of action for realizing a specific goal.
572
questions
1
vote
0answers
75 views
100 boxes, only 50 attempts [duplicate]
There are 100 boxes in the room. In every box there is a note with some number from 1 to 100 (no repetitions).Person A comes into the room and checks all the boxes and notes inside them. He can (doesn'...
0
votes
0answers
59 views
Hundred prisoners [duplicate]
I got a puzzle that I can't figure out.
A hundred prisoners are waiting to be executed. The warden comes to them with an offer. He will give each one of them a secret number, from 1 to 100, not all ...
10
votes
1answer
803 views
Is a fake coin lighter or heavier? [closed]
There are 16 coins, 3 of which are slightly heavier or lighter than the others. The counterfeit coins have the same weight but it is not known whether they are heavier or lighter than the genuine ones....
0
votes
1answer
120 views
Outsmarting a Con (sales) man
During a fun filled golf event vendors have set up stalls offering different things to participants like golf gear, food, clothing etc. Participants can also win gifts in putting contests, drives and ...
0
votes
0answers
109 views
Helping a team guess a correct number without prior knowledge [duplicate]
I am new here and would like to request your explanation for a riddle I saw. It is quite interesting but I don't understand it and would like your assistance to understand what's going on, how to &...
1
vote
1answer
137 views
Variation of 100 prisoners [duplicate]
There are 100 prisoners, each prisoner is given a number between 1 and 100 without knowing which number, the number can repeat and not all of the numbers must be given.
Each prisoner in his turn can ...
6
votes
2answers
266 views
Holiday Madness: Draw a line through all the gifts
Can you collect all the gifts?
The rules:
Start from the star
At each intersection are arrows. You can only move through the intersection in accordance with the direction of the arrow. (e.g If you ...
2
votes
1answer
130 views
Looking for a strategy for assembling a Minesweeper grid knowing only the tiles but not their positions
This puzzle consists of 36 tiles. Each tile has a digit and may or may not have a mine.
The goal is to assemble a 6×6 Minesweeper grid — in other words, each digit must equal the number of mines ...
8
votes
2answers
495 views
Strategy for solving a 3D maze
Given enough time, you can solve a large 2D maze by simply following a wall. Is there any similar strategy for solving a 3D maze that can be used (no marking/memorizing places you've seen in the maze ...
5
votes
3answers
267 views
Optimal Strategy for Matching Pairs
I found a reality TV show recently that I thought would make a fun puzzle. On the show are 10 men and 10 women that have been "matched by experts" (ie. randomly paired). Their goal is to ...
1
vote
0answers
128 views
Social Distancing Colors - A New Type of Puzzle? [closed]
I think I just thought of a new type of puzzle:
Social Distancing Colors.
Each of the colors in the rainbow represents at least how much one has to distance by:
Red is 6m,
Orange is 5m,
Yellow is 4m,
...
7
votes
2answers
273 views
Another coin weighing puzzle, now including shifty coins!
You are, as you have been many times before, in some place that has a balance scale and 12 coins.
11 are all "normal" and stay normal, but one of these coins, however, is shifty -- as soon ...
-3
votes
3answers
225 views
10 Rats and 10 bottles, find one non poisonous bottle with least rats killed [closed]
There are 10 bottles of liquid, out of which 9 bottles are poisonous and one bottle of liquid is non-poisonous. The rats are to be fed this liquid one bottle at a time and rats die instantaneously. ...
10
votes
2answers
877 views
Save the person in 14 moves on a cross
A person was trapped in a building, and you have to save him. You are a police officer and you will arrive at the building at 7 o'clock in the morning. The building looks like this:
Every 2 minutes, ...
10
votes
3answers
531 views
Optimal refueling strategy
On the way home from work, I want to refuel my car. There are 5 petrol stations along the way that all have a different price for petrol. I know that the prices will be in the range [A, B], chosen ...
2
votes
2answers
132 views
Save the poor Gingerbreadmen!
The poor gingerbread men want to survive to Xmas (they don't mind being eaten afterwards). If at least one of them doesn't guess his hat correctly, they will all be cruelly eaten before Xmas. This is ...
3
votes
1answer
174 views
Variation of 100 Prisoners' names in boxes
100 Prisoners' Names in Boxes
The following puzzle is a variation of the above puzzle.
Names in Boxes
The names of 4 prisoners are placed in 4 wooden boxes , one name to a box, and the boxes are ...
0
votes
0answers
68 views
Mastermind Swaszek Strategy [duplicate]
I'm writing a paper for school at the moment (12 grade) and I came across the name Swaszek. His strategy is often referred to as being solvable without any computers. I have read a couple of articles ...
2
votes
1answer
120 views
Crossing a river with bonds and beefs
Here is a river crossing puzzle (note that whenever I use the term "colors", I mean the squares):
Yellow and Red are on one side of the river, while Pink, Blue, Green and Black are on the ...
0
votes
1answer
150 views
Fill grid with Bs
Here is a letter grid:
Here are the rules as to how to manipulate the letters in the grid:
A marker starts at the first square.
For each move you can move the marker one square either up, down, left ...
1
vote
1answer
121 views
Minimum moves to lose grid game
Here is a number grid:
And here is the rule for how to move:
A move consists of selecting two adjacent squares (either vertically, horizontally or diagonally) and dividing the sum of the two numbers ...
9
votes
1answer
240 views
Minimum number of moves to win this number game
This puzzle is inspired by this puzzle that I answered: Is equality possible?
Here is the number grid from that puzzle:
And here is the rule for how to move:
A move consists of selecting two ...
11
votes
3answers
598 views
1000 gold coins to share with the knight
Note: This riddle is similar to this riddle: 1000 gold coins to share with the king, except now YOU are the king, and the rules are switched up a bit. And the situation is wackier...
You are the King ...
3
votes
1answer
156 views
Spies in Puzzlevania
What I am about to tell you doesn't leave this room. For the past year, we've grown concerned by occurrences in the nation of Puzzlevania. We believe a major attack may be imminent. However, the ...
26
votes
4answers
3k views
1000 gold coins to share with the king
You are the knight of a great kingdom in an unknown world. Your king sent you to a dungeon and you killed the dragon and got 1000 gold coins from the dragon’s lair. Normally, you are supposed to give ...
0
votes
0answers
90 views
How to know which head belongs to which tail in a bunch of wires? [duplicate]
I saw a puzzle in a contest in Iran held by an association called "Rahneshan" and the original text of the contest is uploaded HERE and of course both website and text are in Persian.
...
7
votes
2answers
149 views
A harder robot-control puzzle
The goal is to find a sequence (a "program") of max 5 commands that will move the triangle (the "robot") through the grid and make it visit all the squares marked with a star.
Two ...
1
vote
1answer
97 views
Minimise battle time in Monster's Den
So there is this excellent flash game, Monster's Den. In order to make a high score, I must complete many battles..this question is about battles with the Legendary Monsters.
The target is to reduce ...
14
votes
6answers
1k views
A nice robot-control puzzle
The goal is to find a sequence (a "program") of max 6 commands that will move the triangle (the "robot") through the grid and make it visit all the squares marked with a star.
Two ...
17
votes
1answer
508 views
Lap Theory Optimal Betting Game
Three prisoners are seated at a table. Each of them has a mobile phone on their lap, and they are not allowed to look at anyone else’s phone (and obviously no other form of communication is allowed).
...
2
votes
1answer
166 views
19 balls and a scale
You are given 19 identical-looking balls and a two-sided scale. One of the balls is different, either lighter or heavier than the others. Using 4 weighings of the scale, how can you determine which ...
9
votes
2answers
351 views
Three way duel, which guns to choose?
Alice, Bob and Carole are involved in a game of three way duel. They take turns to shoot in the order of Alice-Bob-Carole-Alice-... until only one surviver is left standing. The rule is very simple: ...
10
votes
5answers
964 views
Two player Monty Hall variation
Alice and Bob are going on a game show as partners. In this game, there are three doors, which contain a car, the car keys, and a goat, which are arranged randomly and secretly behind the doors. Alice ...
7
votes
1answer
242 views
A mix of 2048 and Match 3
I was playing a game and thought of this problem:
Rules
There are 4 distinct tiles on a $6\times6$ grid. The game starts out with one block on the board.
You can shift all the tiles in one of the ...
3
votes
1answer
93 views
Quarter Rolling Die
Quarter rolling a die means triping it on any of the 4 sides adjacent to its base or face in contact with the flat surface. Using the assembled die and quarter chessboard:
You can place and align the ...
8
votes
2answers
425 views
Modifying the puzzle: Cooperative hat-guessing, no mistakes, 3+ colors
Following Guess your hat color, but you don't have to and it's interpretation via Covering codes I tried to create a puzzle with more hat variativity, i.g. 3 types of hats.
4 hats are put on 4 ...
2
votes
0answers
156 views
How do you force a win in 4x4x4 TicTacToe
I have read in the wikipedia page of TicTacToe that it is possible for the first player to force a win in a 4x4x4 board. I tried to find a strategy on how to do it online but failed. So, how do you ...
10
votes
1answer
500 views
Mathematics in adolescence
When I start to teach probabilities, I challenge my students with the following:
Thelma is 16 years old and can only go out at night if one of her parents gives her permission. She knows her father ...
16
votes
2answers
639 views
Topological Nim
You and your friend's new favorite game is "topological nim": You take your favorite compact metric space $X$ and a radius $r$. Each player removes an open disk of radius $r$ from the space ...
13
votes
2answers
812 views
A tournament, and a tight personal schedule
A 64-player binary tournament bracket is about to start. You plan to free up your schedule in advance to watch some of the matchups (meaning, you can plan to watch the second semifinal, for example, ...
2
votes
1answer
200 views
How can they attack?
There are four soldier squads planning to attack a town from the north, south, east, and west at the same time.
They are in their positions; now they just need to know when to attack. One of the ...
6
votes
2answers
367 views
A game of 101 stones—win at (not quite) all costs
In the land of Humilia, a tournament game is played between two players with 101 stones in a pot between them. On each turn, a player may take up to five stones from the pot (and must take at least ...
6
votes
1answer
248 views
Crosswords: Maximum number of words in an n×n grid
What is the maximum number of "words spaces" that can be in an n×n crossword, based on the placement of the shaded squares.
Some limitations
No word can be less than 3 spaces in length
...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
What is this puzzle and what is this solving strategy? [duplicate]
This puzzle is a mini game in an app I recently downloaded. In the game it is referred to as a Mobius Puzzle(after some searching I found referenced as a TwoBik Puzzle). But I cant find any other ...
7
votes
3answers
509 views
Balance the nails
Someone I know handed me this puzzle, I have seen a couple of solutions for it that follow the instructions and don’t involve bending the nails, etc.
Can you figure out how to balance the 6 nails on ...
9
votes
2answers
301 views
Bicoloured 2048
I made a new puzzle game that you can play here. It is a variant of 2048 where there are tiles of two colours. You need to merge tiles of the same colour and value to increase your score. In more ...
7
votes
3answers
403 views
The 15 Pebbles Game
This is a game for 2 players - Each player uses a different coloured marker or pencil, there are 15 pebbles in total.
Players take turns to colour 1, 2 or 3 pebbles (player chooses how many). When all ...
3
votes
2answers
452 views
A Puzzle about “Codeforces Subsequences”
I'm quite intrigued by an "easy" problem in recent Codeforces contest: Codeforces Subsequences.
In this problem, you have to create a string $T$ as shortest as possible such that $S = $ &...
10
votes
3answers
310 views
Find a good strategy to survive the multiplayer duel
Alice is involved in a duel with $N$ other opponents. She can choose a gun for herself with any hit probability as she wishes. She also prepares guns for her opponents, whose hit probabilities she can ...
-2
votes
2answers
268 views
Battleship puzzle with no clues
Suppose I have a standard Battleship Puzzle, but with no clues (no square uncovered) at the start. Then I'm given 5 "fires" that uncover a square, what would be the best strategy to chose a square to ...
