OK, Bobo the Bear’s first Checkerboard math puzzle just went up, and it is heavily math/geometry oriented. For those looking for a different sort of challenge, here’s a lateral thinking Checkboard brain teaser : )
Two grandmasters played five games of checkers. Each won an equal number of games, and lost an equal number of games. There were no ties in any of the games. How could this be so?
As always, answers can be entered into the comment section below. Will unmask either Friday or early next week!
Were the two Grandmasters playing each other?
They weren’t playing against each other.
Did they play against each other or against others?
They weren’t playing each other.
The two grandmasters played against other people, and not against each other.
One possibility is that they were not playing against each other… so they could had the same number of wins and losses in 5 games, who knows maybe they were in different tournaments, cool man.
They didn’t play each other.
A possible interpretation may be:
The grandmasters played 5 games each.
The grandmasters did not play all games against each other.
Both grandmasters won/lost an equal number of games as each other.
They were not playing each other.
They didn’t play against one another
I may make this over simplified, but apparently they did not ONLY play each other. They may or may not have played each other, but at the very least they had to play one game with someone other than the “opposing” grandmaster.
They weren’t playing each other.
They didn’t play with each other.
They played with some other player(s).
They did not play each other the whole time (or even at all).
they weren’t playing against each other
There is no way for this to work out in a standard chess tournament. If Grandmaster A wins 3 games and loses 2, then Grandmaster B must win 2 and lose 3, cannot be equal if they are playing against each other. Since the problem does not specifically state that they are playing head-to-head in the same match, I have to assume that each Grandmaster is playing against a different challenger.
The 2 Grandmasters win the same number of games while playing separately against different opponents.
they’re not playing against each other.
They were not playing each other.
They didn’t play against each other!
If they were playing against each other, Grand Master A won 2 games and lost 2 games, Grand Master B won 2 games and lost 2 games, and the last game is not finished yet.
They weren’t playing each other.
They were not playing each other. They both played an equal number of games with other players and won/lost the same number of games.