I have a thing for puzzles based on games where knowledge of the rules of the game help you to solve the puzzle. I’ve been trying for a while to come up with a good puzzle based on Texas Holdem Poker. (For Texas Holdem neophytes, instructions for the game can be found at the previous link.) The idea that kept coming to my mind was the climactic poker scene in Casino Royale when James Bond wins all of the chips. There are four or five players left at the time and they all have cards that make up good hands with the common cards, and still they are all hands of very different values. I wondered if you could figure out what the four common cards were if you were shown each players individual cards and given the final rankings. As a proof of concept I came up with the puzzle below. There are six hands. Hand 1 ranks highest with the common cards and hand 6 ranks lowest. The object is to determine the common cards.
I this puzzle is fairly easy and, of course, the idea would be to provide as little information as possible and still have a unique solution. I’m not sure yet if really challenging puzzles can be made, but I think there is potential here.
Oh yeah, and here’s the answer.
Tags: poker,puzzles,texas-holdem
Nice idea for a puzzle. If I am right, the solution is not unique - there is one of the cards that could change suit, while staying the same colour, and the ranking of the hands would stay the same. You could fix it by putting in the ranking of hand 3H,3S.
Comment by Luke Pebody — January 25, 2008 @ 10:45 am
I also realized when thinking about it today that the solution is not unique. The solution that I came up with is different than the one that you found though. Without giving too much away, the one that I found would result in the hands being: 1=flush, 2=straight, 3=three of a kind, rest=one pair. As opposed to the intended: 1=straight flush, 2=four of a kind, 3=full house, rest=two pair.
Comment by Josh — January 25, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
I went over the puzzle again and the 3H-3S addition, which for the given solution would rank between 3 and 4, resolves the ambiguity that I had discovered also.
Comment by Josh — January 25, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
I enjoyed the puzzle and would enjoy more like this. Have you checked to see if this concept can be programmed to produce more puzzles like this (similar to what’s been done with Sudoku)? I would even purchase software like this. Just a thought . . .
Comment by Scott — February 21, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
You can play this game here : http://jeux.prise2tete.fr/p2t-poker/poker.php5
Comment by It already exists — November 11, 2008 @ 7:49 am