Friday, November 04, 2005

Baseball is puzzling

So, this weekend is Microsoft Puzzle Hunt, which means I'll pretty much be out of commission for the entire weekend. No, I don't work at Microsoft, but a few years ago I was recruited into a Hunt team, and I'm still in it. It really is a super-fun event, and I've been looking forward to it for the last few weeks. In essence, we go on a 36-hour-long scavenger hunt, but instead of finding objects, we have to solve puzzles, which give us clues to solve other puzzles, which eventually all lead to one overarching solution. It's very cool.

Anyway, another puzzle event that's been going on online is a Puzzle Boat. A bunch of my other friends got me to join their team for this, and of course, the first round has a baseball logic puzzle in it, so everyone goes "Crap, we better have Deanna solve this one," and rightly so.

The funny part is, I solved the baseball logic grid part of it, but then once I'd worked it out (you have to figure out a week's worth of baseball game scores in a logic riddle grid sort of game), I couldn't figure out what to do with it *next*, since I knew the solution was going to be a word or a phrase. One of the people on our team who knows nothing about baseball took my scoreboard and figured out the next part. I love teamwork sometimes.

Anyway, since this is a puzzle from the first round, and you could get access to it just by registering a team, which is trivial, I don't feel too bad linking to it; it's not like I'm spoiling a puzzle from a later round.

Charlie Hustle's Betting Streak

If you like puzzles, and you like baseball, you'll really enjoy this one. See if you can solve it! (I'm happy to confirm the answer in email if anyone actually does; take your time, don't feel obligated to solve it quickly.) I may post a book review later tonight, but other than that, see you all in the blogosphere on Monday.

No comments: