Setup and Rule Diagrams

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Ray,

All your rules and contrapositives are correct, so good work there! You have also correctly deduced perhaps the most challenging inference in the game, namely that L cannot be at S, and is thus L is always at R.

By the way, my preferred approach to this game is to create four templates, based on O at R (one template) and O at S (three templates). Those four templates reveal that there are only six total solutions to the game.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[RayMiller]

Yes this helps sooooo much!!!

Too bad I just over thought the game. Because I was thinking surely they wouldn't include rules that would contradict. But it's not a contradiction, it's a strong restriction.

Thanks Dave for such a quick response. I always appreciate the help.

[Jatt]

I worked this preptest earlier today and similarly had issues with it. After reading your response Dave, I came up with the following five solutions:

S: P, J, N
R: O, L, K

S: P, J
R: O, L, K, N

S: O, N, K, P
R: L, J

S: O, N, K
R: L, J, P

S: O, N, J, P
R: L, K

Which solution am I missing here, since I only have five and you said there are six?

Also, in general, what's the best approach to attack this game? I wrote out all of the conditionals and contrapositives correctly and was able to attack the specific questions with relative ease. However, I wasn't able to answer all of the questions because I didn't know that making templates by using the location of O as the base was the best way to go and thereby ran out of time. How can I know this for future games?

Finally, how do you solve #23 on that game? I've narrowed it down to (A) and (E) but, according to the templates I have, they both seem to be plausible answers.

Thanks in advance!

[Jon Denning]

Hey Jatt - thanks for the questions. It looks like the template you're missing is as follows:

S: O N P
R: K J L [note that K and J can go together at R, just not at S]

Let's take a look at question 23: here you can just use your templates to quickly move through the answers until you arrive at E, which is not allowed by any of the solutions shown, thus N and P at R cannot be true. Answer choice A is allowed by the missing solution that I gave you above


As for identifying templates, here it's obviously controlled by the placement of O and what could then happen to K and J. But templates in general are the product of a fair number of things and can be pretty tricky to predict (for instance, does a two-value system like the one in this game always produce templates? no, but it very often does.)

That said, if you let me know what materials you're working with I can possibly steer you in the right direction to learn more about these ideas--there's a significant amount of text in our course books on it, the Logic Games Bible has a chapter devoted to it, etc.

In fact, if you don't have the Games Bible and want to learn more, we've got a new, substantially expanded edition coming out next week that would certainly give you a LOT of great insight into not only templates, but also every other aspect of attacking Games. So definitely something to consider

Hope that helps!

Jon

[SherryZ]

Hi there,

I read your response previously. You mentioned that your preferred approach to this game is to create four templates, based on O at R (one template) and O at S (three templates). Those four templates reveal that there are only six total solutions to the game.

I wonder why you know to create templates based on O at R & at S?? There are so many letters, why do you pick O??

Thank you!

---Sherry

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Sherry,

Great question! There are a couple of things that would lead me to create my templates around O in this game.

You would automatically eliminate L as the variable to create a template around (because it can only go in one position).

Next, given that L can't be at S, Rule 3 only serves to establish that restriction; once you've identified the restriction, what Rule 3 says about N and P is irrelevant to the rest of the game (because L can't be at S, so Rule 3 is never triggered).

That leaves you with Rules 2, 4, and 5 all giving you information relevant to O. That makes O the variable appearing most in the Rules, and accordingly, O gives you the most information about the placement of other variables.

O, therefore, controls the game in a sense. It allows you to see where the other variables can go.

Does that help answer the question?

Thanks!
Emily

[SherryZ]

Dear Emily,

Thank you so much for your reply! Your are the EXPERT!! I did not think in a way as you did, that's the reason that although I got the questions correctly, but very slowly

Hope I can improve to your level lol

Thanks again!

--Sherry

[eober]

Hi,

My setup for this game:
Js-->Kr CP: Ks--> Jr
Jr-->Os CP: Or--> Js
Ls--> Nr + Pr CP: Ns or Ps (is it true to say "but not both?) --> Lr
Nr--> Or CP: Os --> Ns
Pr--> Ks + Os CP: Kr or Or--> Ps

Then I tried connecting it starting with Ls

Nr --> Or
Ls--> +
Pr --> Ks --> Jr
+Os


But how could the above diagram can be possible (both Or and Os), I can't see where I am going wrong.

Any help is appreciated!

[Lucas Moreau]

Hello, eober,

This one can quickly get complicated, despite there being only two groups. Or maybe because of that!

Your initial setup is quite correct. Well done there. It may be false to say "but not both", but it doesn't really matter, just the "or" will suffice. That second diagram is a bit wobbly...here's the setup I made when I diagrammed this game. For me, the keys were Nr and Pr.

Nr Or Js Kr Ps Lr

I combined Nr Or, Or Js, Js Kr, Kr or Or Ps, and Ps Lr to get that one long string. Then, starting with Pr...

.....Ks Jr
Pr
.....Os Ns Lr

From those two, I was able to address the questions. If there's any more setup you need help with, let me know!

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau

[eober]

Thank you so much that diagram is very helpful. But I still don't understand why it does not give the same results when I start with Ls.

Is there a reason why we pick to start with Pr?

Thanks!