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Topic: Take the Last Chip (Read 1661 times) |
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UofLis#1
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I need a Hot girlfriend and a good riddle
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Take the Last Chip
« on: Mar 25th, 2003, 7:57pm » |
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[color=Red][/color] I have looked for this answer all over the hard riddle index since it is listed under the hard riddles page. I was wondering if this riddle was ever discussed and someone knows the answer. The riddle goes like this.
Turkey Sandwich was worried about an upcoming test in Discrete Mathematics and was finding it hard to get to sleep. Turkey awoke early in the morning, aroused by devilish laughter, only to see an impish looking homunculus sitting at the bottom of the bed next to a seemingly infinite pile of chips. Hello Turkey it said, would you like to play a little game? This pile contains 43546758343209876 chips and the bottom chip represents your immortal soul. The rules are quite simple. The first player takes some chips, but not all of them. After that we take it in turns to take some chips.
The only rule now is that a player cannot take more in their turn than the previous player took. The winner is the player who takes the last chip. If I win I get to keep your soul and if you win, you get an A in the test. Would you like to go first or second? This seemed a reasonable bet to Turkey. Can you give Turkey a strategy for playing no matter how many chips there are?
Help please!
Thanks
GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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maryl
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Re: Take the Last Chip
« Reply #1 on: Mar 26th, 2003, 9:20am » |
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If the "problem" ends with an even number, wouldn't it make sense to take one chip at a time, starting with the imp so Turkey gets the last chip?
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Chronos
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Re: Take the Last Chip
« Reply #2 on: Mar 31st, 2003, 4:37pm » |
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So you tell the imp "OK, you go first, and only take one chip"? I don't think that the imp is going to cooperate.
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Icarus
wu::riddles Moderator
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Boldly going where even angels fear to tread.
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Re: Take the Last Chip
« Reply #3 on: Mar 31st, 2003, 4:50pm » |
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The pre-existing thread for this riddle is found here.
The search option (on the toolbar at the top) can be useful in finding threads, but you have to change from its default values. In this case, I did a search on the word "Turkey" by any poster checking the hard forum only, with minimum days set to 10 (to avoid references to the current thread) and maximum days set to 999 (which picks up everything, since this site is not 3 years old).
The max days setting is particularly important to change. The default value of 7 is sure to miss anything you haven't already seen on the first page of the forum.
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"Pi goes on and on and on ...
And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
When their digits are reversed? " - Anonymous
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william wu
wu::riddles Administrator
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Re: Take the Last Chip
« Reply #4 on: Mar 31st, 2003, 9:22pm » |
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Just changed some of the default search parameters. Default max days is now 100,000. Also, it searches all posts by default, rather than just those made by members.
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[ wu ] : http://wuriddles.com / http://forums.wuriddles.com
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Boody
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Re: Take the Last Chip
« Reply #5 on: Apr 1st, 2003, 5:00am » |
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on Mar 31st, 2003, 9:22pm, william wu wrote:| Just changed some of the default search parameters. Default max days is now 100,000. |
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Thanks for that Wu.
A trapped newbie for his first post.
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