Order of cards
I ask Alex to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.
He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Peter can’t see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Alex. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Peter.
Peter looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Alex is holding (suit and number). How?
The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Peter needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.
Pick out two cards of the same suit. Select a card for Alex where adding a number no greater than six will result in the number of the other card of the same suit. Adding one to the Ace would cycle to the beginning again and result in a Two. E.g. if you have a King and a Six of Diamonds, hand the King to Alex. The other three cards will be used to encode a number from 1 through 6. Devise a system with Peter to rank all cards uniquely from 1 to 52 (e.g. the two of hearts is 1, the two of diamonds is fourteen etc…). That will allow you to choose from six combinations, depending on where you put the lowest and highest cards.
Your Answer
More puzzles to try-
Shell tied to boat puzzle
A shell is tied to the side of a boat. The shell hangs 3 metres above water level. The water ...Read More »Make A Box
How can you create 3 squares moving exactly 3 sticks?Read More »Which number replaces the question mark?
Its Tasty but What is it?
There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was ...Read More »Red and Blue Marbles
You have two jars, 50 red marbles and 50 blue marbles. You need to place all the marbles into the ...Read More »Brainteaser Puzzle
If 24H in a D => 24 hours in a day. What does “64S on CB” stand for?Read More »Strategy for a 2 Player Coin Game
Consider a two player coin game where each player gets turn one by one. There is a row of even ...Read More »A person was born in 1940 having his 18th birthday
A person was born in 1940. Today is his 18th birthday. How is that possible?Read More »Barbie Doll
What is the Surname of Barbie Doll?Read More »Electronic Weighing machine to find defective chocolate box puzzle
You have ten chocolate boxes containing 10 chocolate each and an electronic weighing machine. In those ten boxes, you have ...Read More »City without People
What City has No People? A) Velocity B) Electricity C) Elasticity D) All the aboveRead More »THE FLETCHER’S PARADOX
Imagine a fletcher (i.e. an arrow-maker) has fired one of his arrows into the air. For the arrow to be ...Read More »Dog Crosses River Riddle
A man calls his dog from the opposite side of a river. The dog crosses the river without a bridge ...Read More »Howl & Whisper
You can feel it but, it can not feel you. It can uproot trees and tear roofs off. Yet, it ...Read More »Long Night
A Boy had just got out of the shower and getting ready for his prom,shaved,and with cologne and there was ...Read More »How many apples are on the ground?
An apple tree has apples on it. A storm comes through and there is no longer apples on the tree. ...Read More »Magical Maths
We have arranged an array of numbers below. What you have to do is use any kind of mathematical symbol ...Read More »A girl’s and a boy’s Murder Mystery Puzzle
A girl and a boy were out one night. They were in the woods, and they saw 3 men hunting. ...Read More »Jump higher than mountain puzzle
Who can jump higher than a mountain?Read More »I am beginning of everything
I am the beginning of everything, the end of everywhere. I’m the beginning of eternity, the end of time and ...Read More »
