Listener 4321 - Solitaire Ii By Xanthippe

[Cruncher]

Looks like my all-correct run is at an end...

[Contrarian]

Have only had a brief look, but it seems quite simple. At least it's not base 24!

[Cagey]

I enjoyed this. A nice logic problem. Relatively quick solve, but none the worse for it. A welcome break as have been a bit neutral to word puzzles of late. Especially pleased not a substitution type number puzzle. Thank you Xanthippe.

[olichant]

I found this pretty hard to get into, but ultimately satisfying. Thanks, Xanthippe.

[crosswhit99]

Not bad, but when I had multiple possible answers for 17a, 18a and 15d I thought I'd gone wrong somewhere until I realised that the subsequent game determined the correct choices - perhaps this could have been mentioned earlier in the preamble ? Anyway at least there's still plenty of time to watch some exciting sport this weekend, or for a stiffer challenge you could take a look at this fiendish substitution cipher:

http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/cryptography_competition_the_imitation_game/index.php?loc=code2

[TheBear69]

Crosswhit, it WAS mentioned in the preamble; read it again!

I found step c of the game quite difficult.

[crosswhit99]

Just a thought, as I said, perhaps it could have been mentioned earlier in the preamble ?

[AHearer]

Lovely puzzle. The numerical part had a reasonably easy starting point, and the grid fill then went quite smoothly. As my Solitaire skills are very poor it was good that the early stages of the grid empty were easy, and I only took one false move in the last 15. Many thanks, Xanthippe.

[crosswhit99]

Yes, step (c) actually turned out to be very straightforward given that there were only 3 choices for the first three letters of the 9-letter word, and actually only 4 possible words from the 8 different letters available. Combining these 2 facts narrowed it to just two possible words, only one of which was achievable with the peg layout.

[olichant]

I actually loved the way the subsequent game (and its importance in the context of the gridfill) was referred to in the preamble. If the setter had wanted to be really sadistic, I guess s/he could have omitted the reference altogether.

Thanks for the Turing link - looks utterly impossible!

[Cruncher]

Now the proud possessor of an app called HexCalc so feeling a little less woossy about this one. Here we go

[AWP65]

It seems to me that 10dn being a multiple of 64 contradicts 12ac being an odd number. Is there an error in the printed edition?

[captaincoma]

I don't understand this at all. How can some of the entries be numbers and some letters?

[jim360]

It might be worth looking up the wikipedia entry on hexadecimal numbers if you don't understand how the puzzle is meant to work. I think this should resolve both of the last two points.

[AWP65]

In fact its not a lack of understanding regarding hexadecimal, it was purely my normal lack of attention to the preamble!

[s_pugh]

I loathe number puzzles & suspect this one's headed for the trash already. What I can't get my head around at all is the multiple properties. Are they saying that 10dn is a multiple of 64 in decimal (i.e. 'normal') terms but displayed in a hexadecimal format? So hypothetically for example the answer could be 280 (the hex equivalent of the decimal 640) .... obviously that wouldn't be the real answer as it fails on other terms. If anyone could set this straight I might be able to get somewhere!

[olichant]

s_pugh, it's worth persevering (honest!) The preamble does say that numbers in the "properties" are themselves in hex, not decimal.

[TheBear69]

s_pugh, the preamble states that numbers used in properties are in hex.

[TheBear69]

olichant, you beat me by 2 seconds!

[TheBear69]

I mean minutes

[s_pugh]

Ah thanks Olichant (& theBear), so '10' isn't ten but hex one-zero. I read the pre-amble many times but it didn't click until then. Drawing board out again. Ta.