Setup and Rule Diagrams

[sarahmil]

Hi, I got unusually stumped on this game. It took me 15 minutes.

I had the following:

G-K

LM or ML

then i set up template I with J in 2 and template II with J in 6
F in 5 for both

the questions seemed to take me forever. Specifically #3 (i chose E by POE) and 4 (I chose D).

I'm assuming i missed an inference somewhere as I just couldn't do this one fast.

[Claire Horan]

Hi Sarahmil,

Good job using templates on this question. They are the key to this question. Your mistake is not taking them far enough. You ended up with two templates, but if you considered the restrictions a bit more, you would have ended up with four.

Let's start with the J2 template. Once you put J and F in their spots, you should see that not many decks can be built in Week 1. The first spot can't fit the ML/LM block, and K can't go first because it must be preceded by G. That leaves only G and H that can go first. Once you realize that, a lightbulb should go off in your head to split this template further. Draw the J2G1 template and the J2H1 template.

If that made sense to you, you might be able to guess what to do with the J6 template. Split it into the possibilities for what can go last. You'll end up with J6K7 and J6H7.

Once you've done that, you only have a few unresolved spots for each template, and you should advance from diagramming to answering the questions. With these four templates, it may take you less than a minute to solve both #3 and #4.

Thanks for the question, and remember, the more you practice using templates, the more natural it'll get.

Good luck!