Goodreads All Sorts discussion

Every week there will be a brain teaser for you all to figure out. Will you be the first to get the answer to the riddle of the week?

Riddle Of The Week For This Week:

The more you have of it, the less you see. What is it?

Yep, I would say darkness too. Good on you Erin :)

I love riddles and logic puzzles etc. :)

Yep, darkness. Good job Erin!

Well done Erin! You're right. I'll have to make it a bit harder next week. :-)

Riddle Of The Week:


Okay, this is a hard one.

SHOOT

Mr. Black, Mr. Gray, and Mr. White are fighting in a truel. They each get a gun and take turns shooting at each other until only one person is left. Mr. Black, who hits his shot 1/3 of the time, gets to shoot first. Mr. Gray, who hits his shot 2/3 of the time, gets to shoot next, assuming he is still alive. Mr. White, who hits his shot all the time, shoots next, assuming he is also alive. The cycle repeats. If you are Mr. Black, where should you shoot first for the highest chance of survival?

I think Mr black should shoot Mr white first

Mmmmm, have been pondering over this one. I'm just going to type my thoughts out here (hope that's ok?) Don't know if any of what I type will make much sense. These things usually make sense in my head but not necessarily on paper LOL You can pretty much ignore everything I've written. My answer will be at the bottom.

If Mr Black shoots Mr Gray and manages to kill him that means Mr White will be left and as he hits his shot every time, he will kill Mr Black.

If Mr Black misses Mr Gray, then I presume Mr Gray will try and kill Mr White because Mr White always gets his shot and he will want him out of the way. Mr Gray gets his shot 2/3 of the time so there's a fairly good chance he will get him (but not certain of course.)
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If Mr Black shoots Mr White and gets him then Mr Gray will be left and he hits his shot 2/3 of the time. That means he has a pretty good chance of shooting Mr Black as Mr Black will be the only person left.
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Basically, I'm thinking that Mr Black needs to make sure that he's not the only one left (along with one of the other guys) because they have much better odds of killing him than he does of killing them.

So, in order to put the odds in his favour, I think that he (Mr Black) shoud use his shot to shoot at something other than one of the other two men. Say a tree or something.

That way it's likely that Mr Gray will use his shot to shoot Mr White and hopefully take him out. If he misses, when it's Mr White's turn, he will most likely take out the person with the better odds of killing him, which will be Mr Gray.

This will leave Mr Black and Mr White left. Now it would be Mr Black's turn again and even though his odds are low, he still has a 1 in 3 chance of killing Mr White.

So to sum up, Mr Black should shoot a tree or something other than one of the two men.

(Sorry, I know this is confusing, but I find it helps me to try and work stuff out like this. I don't even know if it will make sense and I'm probably wrong anyway LOL)

Mr. Black should shoot at nothing. If Mr. Black shoots at nothing, it is Mr. Gray's turn. Mr. Gray would rather shoot at Mr. White than Mr. Black, because he is better. If Mr. Gray kills Mr. White, it is just Mr. Black and Mr. Gray left, giving Mr. Black a fair chance of winning. If Mr. Gray does not kill Mr. White, it is Mr. White's turn. He would rather shoot at Mr. Gray and will definitely kill him. Even though it is now Mr. Black against Mr. White, Mr. Black has a better chance of winning than before.

Lucy wrote: "Mr. Black should shoot at nothing. If Mr. Black shoots at nothing, it is Mr. Gray's turn. Mr. Gray would rather shoot at Mr. White than Mr. Black, because he is better. If Mr. Gray kills Mr. White, it is just Mr. Black and Mr. Gray left, giving Mr. Black a fair chance of winning. If Mr. Gray does not kill Mr. White, it is Mr. White's turn. He would rather shoot at Mr. Gray and will definitely kill him. Even though it is now Mr. Black against Mr. White, Mr. Black has a better chance of winning than before. "

That's cool Lucy :) We both got the same answer (pretty much) but you managed to explain it a lot better than I did LOL. I love doing these types of logic puzzles but can never get nice, conscise (sp?) answers. I end up going all over the place to get to my point ha ha. I'm curious to find out if we are right :) Fingers crossed :)

Lynn wrote: "Lucy wrote: "Mr. Black should shoot at nothing. If Mr. Black shoots at nothing, it is Mr. Gray's turn. Mr. Gray would rather shoot at Mr. White than Mr. Black, because he is better. If Mr. Gray kil..."

Just reading this over has me quivering with anxiety. When I saw the word "riddle" I had thought of something much less complex than the logic problem you both solved. I bow my head in respect :^D