This week’s Riddler at FiveThirtyEight reruns a puzzle initially run back in February. The game is a “war” between two warlords fighting over 10 castles. Each warlord has 100 soldiers, and the 10 castles are worth from 1 to 10 points each. If you send more soldiers to a given castle than your opponent, you win it… Continue reading Fighting the Last War
Category: Riddler
Count von Count Riddler
I periodically attempt the FiveThirtyEight Riddler, edited by Oliver Roeder. This week he’s actually presenting two, a shorter “Riddler Express”, and a more time consuming “Riddler Classic”. The Sesame Street character Count von Count likes to, well, count, and he now has his own twitter feed! For those who don’t recall the character from the… Continue reading Count von Count Riddler
Pirate Riddler
This week’s FiveThirtyEight Riddler is a logic puzzle. Assume 10 “Perfectly Rational Pirate Logicians”. The pirates have found 10 gold pieces, and the puzzle is to figure out how they will allocate the loot among themselves. There are several constraints. First, the pirates themselves are ranked in a strict hierarchy, with the Captain at the top, and… Continue reading Pirate Riddler
FiveThirtyEight Baseball Division Champs Puzzle
Update: I’ve added a link to the Perl progam I used to do these simulations. Oliver Roeder presents a weekly puzzler on FiveThirtyEight, and this week it was a baseball-themed puzzle. Assume a sport (say, “baseball”) in which each team plays 162 games in a season. Also assume a “division” (e.g. the “AL East”) containing 5 teams, each… Continue reading FiveThirtyEight Baseball Division Champs Puzzle