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"Left" Riddles - Next 10 of 168.
Riddle:
You have 52 playing cards, 26 red, and 26 black. You draw cards one by one. A red card pays you a dollar. A black one fines you a dollar. You can stop any time you want. Cards are not returned to the deck after being drawn. What is the optimal stopping rule in terms of maximizing your expected payoff? Also, what is the expected payoff following this optimal rule?
Answer: The solution to this problem is, in my opinion the most difficult to understand of all the puzzles. Indeed I was unable to solve it and didn't receive a complete solution until two years after originally posting it. The final solution, in the form of the spreadsheet was sent to me by Han Zheng. For this reason I have left on the page the thoughts i had before I had the final solution as they represent an easier to understand and more simplistic approach. Also the reasoning may help you arrive at the final solution by yourself or help you understand it. I would recommend reading that answer before you dive into the full answer. But an important thing to note are that as the player we can't lose this game as we can gamble till all the cards are drawn and our net position is zero. From our earlier analysis it is clear we need a dynamic quit rule. A singal value is not sufficent. We must, at each stage consider what cards are remaining, and therefor the probability of a positive or negative outcome from drawing again. For the explanation i will ask you first to consider a deck containing only 6 cards, 3 +ve & 3 -ve (note i'm no longer calling the cards black and red, it confuses me.)
Riddle:
You are driving a car. On your right is a steep cliff. Right in front of you there is a horse and right behind an elephant, both of which travel at your own speed. On your left there is a fire truck blocking you. How do you stop your car?
Answer: Just ask the merry-go-round operator to stop!
Riddle:
They grab me, carry me, roast me on an open flame, grind me to pieces, blast what's left apart with boiling water, then finally, consume me. This happens to me and my billions of brothers daily. What am I?
Answer: I am (or rather, I become) Coffee! (Coffee bean also acceptable)
Riddle:
There are four cards in front of you. You don't know the suits, but that's not important. Assume that all of the following statements are true: 1) There are no ace cards. 2) The difference between the third card and the first card is 8. 3) The difference between the fourth card and the second card is 7. 4) There are no face cards. 5) The card on the left cannot be greater than the card on the right. What are the four cards?
Answer: The card on the far left is a 2, the card next to it is a 3, then there is a 10, and there is a 10 next to the first 10 card. Hey, I didn't say there couldn't be any cards of the SAME value!
Riddle:
If you counted 20 houses going to school, and then 20 houses on the left, going home. How many houses have you counted?
Answer: 20. They're the same houses going back.
Riddle:
Why is France like a skeleton?
Answer: Because only the bony part is left.
This is a play on words referring to Napoleon Bonaparte who played a key role in the 1789 French Revolution and was the first Emporer of France from 1804-15.
Riddle:
There are two green caps and three red caps. Jack, Lisa and Bill close their eyes, pull out their hats and put them on their heads. It's a game in which three people look at the colors of others' hat and match their hats. Bill and Lisa said they didn't know, but Jack said I knew. What is Jack's hat color?
Answer: It's red because Bill and Lisa wear green hats, and the only red hats are left
Riddle:
Colin recently bought a new motorbike. One morning, he polished the bike for his evening bike ride, closed the garage, and went to work. When Colin came back, he found that the motorbike was gone. The man called the police, and the officers questioned three neighbors. Jessica said that she had stayed home all day because she was sick. Elizabeth said that when she was walking her dog, she saw that the motorbike was still in the garage. Pete said that he had come to Colin's house to ask for some garden tools, but when nobody opened the door for him, he simply left. Who stole the motorbike?
Answer: Elizabeth stole the motorbike. She couldn't possibly see that the bike was still in the garage because Colin closed the garage before leaving to go to work.
Riddle:
Lily's diamond had been stolen from her house. When detectives Ethan and Ethel arrive at the house, they squeezed through the corridor that could only fit one person at a time and asked Lily who did she suspect. Lily told the two that she heard engines, gave a list of three suspects and hurled them out of her house to get investigating. The three suspects are as follows: Ben, who only has 3 huge caravans; Million, the owner of 10 dogs; and Hank, a proud motorbike collector who has over 50 motorbikes in his garage. Who is the thief?
Answer: We know that the corridor leading into Lily's house can only fit one person at a time, so it cannot be Ben whose caravans obviously can't go into the house. We know that Lily heard engines, so it can't be Million, as she's only got dogs. So the only one left is HANK, who can both produce engine noises and get into that narrow corridor at the SAME time using his motorbike.
Riddle:
Hey baseball fans, here’s an unusual game. See if you can figure out how this combination of events happened. A regular nine-inning baseball game ended with a score of two to nothing. During the game, there was one home run, a double, and 10 singles. During all these three events there was only one out. There were two walks. There were no double or triple plays. At the end of each team’s at-bat, there was no man left on base. There were no stolen bases, or pickoffs, and nobody was caught stealing. There were no errors of any type. How could this be?
Answer: It was a woman’s baseball game.
