If Tyrone plays in the fourth game, then which one of the following could be true?

Lizzie-Annerino on June 2, 2019

Confused

I felt like all of the answer choices could have been true. Could you diagram one or two of them to show why they couldn't have been true?

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Ravi on June 3, 2019

@Lizzie-Annerino,

Happy to help.

Before we look at the question, let's make sure our game setup is good.

We have 4 chess games and 6 players, so we know there will be some
repeats. The pieces are L, N, O, P, S, and T.

_ _ _ _
_ _ _ _

We know T isn't in 1 or 3, so T has to be in 2 or 4. The two slots in
both 2 and 4 are interchangeable because the slots represent the
players in the game.

L plays in 4

_ _ _ L
_ _ _ _

We know that N is only in one game and it isn't with P

NP not together and N doesn't repeat

S plays in 2 games, 1 just before and just after O plays

SOS

We can split the game into two boards, putting the SOS next to L and
then another where SOS overlaps with L

SOSL
_ _ _ _

_ _ _ L
_ S O S

In the second board, T must go in 2 because 4 is totally occupied

_ T _ L
_ S O S

We know N and P can't be together, so they have to split 1 and 3

N T P L
_S O S

or

P T N L
_ S O S

The other position has to be L since it's the only player available to
fill in the spot in 1

P T N L
L S O S

Since we know N and O don't repeat, we know that either L, P, or T
must repeat so that we fill out all 8 slots.

In looking at the top board, it's still very open, so we just need to
keep in mind the rules for it.

SOSL
_ _ _ _

The question tells us that T is in 4. This means we're looking at the
first game board since T is in 2 in our second one.

SOSL
_ _ _T

With (A), N could definitely be in 2. We could put P in 3 and L in 1.

(B) is wrong because there's only 1 O allowed, and it's already occupying 2.

(C) is wrong because there are 2 S pieces on our board already and
they're in 1 and 3.

(D) is wrong because T is with L, so N can't be with L

(E) is wrong because T is with L, so P can't be with L

SOSL
_ _ _T

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions!