Questions tagged [strategy]
A puzzle whose solution is a methodological plan of action for realizing a specific goal.
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Duel between the knight and the dragon
A dragon and a knight live on an island where the only sources of fresh water are a pond (containing ordinary water) and six wells, numbered 1 to 6. Each well's water is completely indistinguishable ...
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Capture The Runaway Mouse
Say you have a grid of 16x16 squares. Label them A through P and 1 through 16.
Now say that at H8 there's a mouse that moves at 1 slot every turn. Also, you get to block a tile every turn.
Say the ...
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Tic-Tac-Toe variant
To help people think this out, I've made a web game with increasingly difficult cpu players to allow brainstorming and testing strategies:
cpu player, easiest (version 1 - at least 5-in-a-row is ...
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Optimal building strategy puzzle with airdropped mining bases
The general from Optimal Building Strategy Puzzle is in a conflict with another general. This general is from another faction with 3 major differences in his technology:
Instead of the worker having ...
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Optimal Building Strategy Puzzle
Suppose a general is in charge of a mining site with 5 workers and he has a total of 50 units of gold. Each worker is able to mine for him 40 units of gold per minute.
The general is able to ...
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Dinosaur egg drop
Archeologists discover two dinosaur eggs, and you are given the chance to test the durability of these eggs (bad move on their part). Suppose that these eggs will absorb a specific amount of force ...
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Is it possible to use one sequence of moves to solve the Rubik's cube from any position?
Is there a sequence of moves that can be repeated over and over again which can solve any legal position the Rubik's Cube? If so what is it, and if there's more than one, what's the shortest? If not, ...
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Strategy for solving many-clue detective puzzles [closed]
There are some puzzles that require sorting out many possible clues, such as The SErial Killer's killer and Mysterious Murder Mystery 3. They are often mysteries. What is a good way to organize ...
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Attach a candle to the wall [closed]
The following is a classic puzzle. It has a canonical solution, but I'd also like any other creative or unusual solutions you can think of. This is a popularity contest - the highest voted answer ...
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How many Questions will you need to Guess the Card?
Suppose your friend grabs a random card from a deck. Now you can ask questions about that card. You can only ask yes/no and greater/less than questions. How many questions do you need to determine the ...
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No-Connecting-4
Imagine a game of connect 4 where Player1 wins by Player2 connecting 4, and Player2 wins by forcing the board into a filled board without any 4-in-a-rows. A tie happens if Player1 connects 4.
Now Let'...
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Dominating Furbles
This question was previously from the Haselbauer - Dickheiser Test For Exceptional Intelligence, a test that was previously available on the website www.highiqosociety.com, but was removed several ...
- 3,359
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Picking up stones
Here is puzzle that was lifted from an old essay of mine, that was adapted from a puzzle in an old puzzle book.
The great shah has invited a young boy into his palace as a student. While he is not ...
user88
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answers
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Getting Stuck on Purpose
Consider the following building floor plan, with a set of rooms labeled A-G and an Outside:
...
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A puzzle of trust and lies, allies and spies
Here is a puzzle involving distrust and asymmetric knowledge. (It was inspired by, but not exactly following, the board game The Resistance: Avalon.)
There are ten resistance fighters trying to ...
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What's a good Boxes Strategy?
What would be the strategy for the game Boxes? (Boxes is the game in which players connect dots on a grid and whoever encloses a box gets a point, along with an extra turn, until all lines are made)
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Can you Turn MI to MU?
Using the letters M, I, and U, which can be used to create words. Can you turn MI into MU using in each step one of the following rules:
Insert a U to the end of a word ending in I. e.g: MI becomes ...
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How do we get those dang Illuminati?
The Illuminati just stole our office They shot JFK and have committed numerous crimes against humanity (not really) but we usually let that slide. But for stealing our offices, we have decided to ...
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6 Tries to Guess a Number Between 1-100
After every time you guess, you're told if you're right, too high, or too low. Is there a strategy you can use to guarantee you'll get it on your 6th attempt (or lower)?
I know a strategy to get it ...
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Faulty computers
You have $99$ computers in a LAN room, and you know that at least $50$ are working. The others can be faulty.
The only thing you are allowed to do is to ask computer $i$ the question "Is computer $j$ ...
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The Maze With An Unknown Size
You awake in the middle of a maze. You do not know how large the maze is. You do not know how many paths there are.
How can you assure you get out in the shortest amount of time?
This assumes the ...
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1
answer
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Coins on a table
John and Jane are playing a game. They both go to the bank and each get 1000 euros in two-euro pieces. So each of them has 500 coins at stake. They then find a large rectangle table and decide that ...
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20 coins on the table
Two boys , Brian and Gabe, decide to play a game.
They lay 20 coins on the table. Each player took turns taking 1, 2, or 3 coins. Whoever took the last coin won.
Brian thought if he went first, he'd ...
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Entangled physicists
The anti-intellectuals have won the war, and under the iron rule of emperor Nonotin anyone who has been deemed too smart for their own good has been brought to labour camps.
But most of the science ...
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Which one is the lightest marble?
There are 8 marbles that one of them is lighter than the others, and all other seven marbles have the same weight.
There is a balance scale that you can use it twice or once.
Is there any way to find ...
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The lake monster
You are on a rowboat in the middle of a large, perfectly circular lake. On the perimeter of the lake is a monster who wants to eat you, but fortunately, he can't swim. He can run (along the perimeter)...
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Arranging cards in rows
This question appeared in an old math contest, and I seem to remember that the answer I had back when I first saw it was unsatisfactory.
You have a deck of cards numbered from $1$ to $60$. First, you ...
user88
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2
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How to survive, with statistics
You are kidnapped and your offender plays a game with you. In front of you are 2 boxes, containing a total of 50 white balls and 50 black balls. The kidnapper will pull out a ball from one of the two ...
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How many subset intersections do you require?
Alice chooses a subset S of {A,B,C,D,E}.
Bob makes a guess of any subset T and Alice tells him the number of elements in S$\cap$T.
Bob has to continue making guesses until he can exactly determine S....
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Land claim staking
It was traditional during the times of the Oregon Trail and the gold rush that men founding new towns were allowed to stake their claim on land upon arriving to the west coast.
Suppose a man is ...
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Middle weight puzzle
There are 100 white and 101 black balls. All the balls have different weights. Balls of the same colour look the same. White balls are numbered from lighter to heavier (from 1 to 100). The same is ...
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A two player game: Player who gets to 1000 or more first, wins
This is from the current weekly math challenge from the newspaper Le Monde.
Alice and Bob play the following game, in turn:
A number between $1$ and $10$ is written on a blackboard.
At each of their ...
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Church charity lottery
Suppose you've rigged the church charity lottery so that you cannot lose (what a swell guy you are). There are 10 drawings, and you start off with 10 dollars exactly.
At each drawing, you must chose ...
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$N_{max}$ balls in 3 weightings
This is a small generalization of well known 12 balls puzzle:
You are given two-sided scale and some number of balls. All balls have the same weight but one. It is of a different weight, although ...
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Twelve balls on a scale, where one ball is lighter and another is heavier
Suppose you have twelve identical-looking balls. Ten of them are the same weight, but one is slightly lighter and one slightly heavier, in such a way that the weight of the lighter and heavier ball ...
user88
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1
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Maximal number of steps needed to solve 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube
What is the maximal number of steps that a computer (using the fastest algorithm) would need to solve an arbitrary 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube configuration?
Are there any other known algorithms that will ...
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Is there any way to 'trap' my opponent on Connect Four?
I am trying to find out if there are any 'optimal' moves in the game, so as to trap my enemy to put his pawns in the place where I need them
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Clever ways to solve Mastermind?
Is there any specific way to solve Mastermind?
Apart from the first step that is pure chance, is there any way to continue based on the colors that you think are correct?
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Is there any specific way to play Solitaire?
I am interested in finding out if there is any specific way (algorithm) to play solitaire (not the card game)
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2
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Is there an algorithm for the Rubik's 360?
Is there an algorithm to help me solve the Rubik's 360?
Usually I just do it at random, but I rarely succeed.
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7
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Why does this solution guarantee that the prince knocks on the right door to find the princess?
I found this puzzle online:
On the top floor of a castle lives a princess. The floor has 17 bedrooms arranged in a row. Each bedroom has doors connecting to the adjoining bedrooms as well as to the ...
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1
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What is the lowest you can get in 2048? [duplicate]
What is the lowest score you can get in 2048? Creating high numbers is obviously bad, but what about not matching numbers?
What is the chance of getting this lowest score?
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How do I approach a "stuck" game of minesweeper?
I've played many a-game of minesweeper, and I frequently reach positions in which there is no logical, deterministic way to come to a conclusion about how I should solve the puzzle.
How should I ...
user20
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1
answer
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What frequent patterns can be used to overcome Minesweeper obstacles?
Minesweeper, to those who do not know the strategies involved, is a difficult game.
What patterns exist in the game which I can take advantage of?
Meta-context: this question is an offshoot of ...
user20
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3
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Is it always safe to click first in the lower lefthand corner of a Minesweeper puzzle?
I always start a Minesweeper puzzle in Windows by clicking the cell in the lower left corner. Even though I have never seen a bomb there, how sound is this strategy? Is it possible that some time in ...
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How could I have avoided this mistake in Minesweeper?
The puzzle grid pictured below is a prime example of the classic rush to judgment:
I was so sure of my decision, but when I double-clicked to clear more cells, the cell to the left of the one I had ...
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1
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How to deal with conjugate-pair pseudocycles when solving Sudoku
In single-solution regular Sudoku puzzles, sometimes you may encounter a combination of possible cell solutions such as:
{2,7} in A1 and A7 (same row)
{2,7} in A7 and B8 (same box)
{2,7} in B8 and E8 ...
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The Mexican Standoff
There are three cowboys in a Mexican standoff against each other, named Juan, José, and Jorge.
Juan is the straightest shooter in the West, and can hit his target 100% of the time.
José, who has a ...
user88
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Elegant solution to the Magic Hexagon problem
The Magic Hexagon Problem
A magic hexagon of order $n$ is an arrangement of close-packed hexagons containing the numbers $1, 2, ..., H_{n-1}$, where $H_n$ is the $n^{th}$ hex number such that the ...
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Of these five approaches to starting a jigsaw puzzle, which one is fastest?
Of the following 5 strategies for getting started assembling a jigsaw puzzle:
Assembling the border and connecting other pieces to it
Working your way out from one corner
Trying to assemble faces ...
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