[Guest]

Five pirates have obtained 100 gold coins and have to divide up the loot. The pirates are all extremely intelligent, treacherous and selfish (especially the captain).

The captain always proposes a distribution of the loot. All pirates vote on the proposal, and if half the crew or more go "Aye", the loot is divided as proposed, as no pirate would be willing to take on the captain without superior force on their side.

If the captain fails to obtain support of at least half his crew (which includes himself), he faces a mutiny, and all pirates will turn against him and make him walk the plank. The pirates start over again with the next senior pirate as captain.

What is the maximum number of coins the captain can keep without risking his life?

[Guest]

49/100 coins he can keep. As long as he has enough to distribute at least one to half his crew he always has at least half on his side and can get off without mutiny....

[Guest]

A "fair" distribution would be 20 coins for himself and 20 for each of the four pirates. I'll make the assumption, therefore, that any crew member will vote "aye" if he is personally awarded more than 20. The captain can keep 58. Two pirates each get 21. The other two get none.

[Guest]

the answer is 25 because the original captain was killed, the 2nd captain in order not to harm himself splits it evenly among the 4 remaining pirates

[Guest]

keep 98 give a coin to two other pirates 3/5 majority captain and two crew against two crew works for inteligent answer but not a greedy answer - which means only one will survive because they end up killing each other

[Guest]

keep 98 give a coin to two other pirates 3/5 majority captain and two crew against two crew works for inteligent answer but not a greedy answer - which means only one will survive because they end up killing each other

I don't understand how your answer would give the captain a 3/5 majority. What is the incentive for 2 pirates to vote Aye? They would know that 2 pirates would definitely vote Nay. For the other 2, voting Nay would get them a new proposal (not to mention a new captain) that would surely be better than this one.

Hmmm, maybe this problem also would affect my own earlier post. But I think the captain would at least have a chance at winning the 2 votes he needs if he followed my thinking.

[Guest]

keep 98 give a coin to two other pirates 3/5 majority captain and two crew against two crew works for inteligent answer but not a greedy answer - which means only one will survive because they end up killing each other

I agree with LIS, and it does work for greedy answer too...

I'll number the pirates 1 to 5 in order of seniority, i.e. pirate 1 is the initial captain. If we work backwards, then let's look at what happens with only 2 pirates left.

The question states that if "half or more" say aye then it is accepted. In this case the proposal will always be accepted as there will be 1 for and 1 against. So if there are 2 pirates left the captain (pirate number 4) will keep 100 coins and the other (pirate number 5) gets none.

Now look at if there are three left. The captain in this case (pirate number 3) only needs 1 vote from the other two for his proposal to be accepted. Pirate 5 knows that he will get nothing if this proposal isn't accepted, so to make sure pirate 3 gets pirate 5's vote he offers him 1 coin and keeps the other 99 for himself.

Now look at four left. Again the captain (now pirate 2) only needs 1 vote from the other two. Pirate 4 knows he will get nothing if this proposal is rejected (as it will be split as above), so pirate 2 simply offers pirate 4 one coin and keeps the other 99 to himself.

Now look at five left. In this case the captain (pirate 1) needs 2 votes. Pirates 3 and 5 know they will get nothing if the proposal isn't accepted, so the captain offers each of them 1 coin and keeps the other 98 to himself.

So the final distribution is 98,0,1,0,1.

Although pirates 2 and 4 wouldn't be happy, they wouldn't go up against 3 pirates so this will always work.

[Guest]

The captain needs 2 other votes to have more than half of the pirates with him. He should simply choose two pirates then divide the sum equally between the three of them, this way the 2 chosen pirates will surely agree to the terms of the captain. This means, the captain can take 32 gold peices for him, and give 34 for each of the 2 other pirates... This will garantee that he gets his share of gold without risking his life

[unreality]

This is a really, really good riddle ;D 5 stars

[Guest]

final answer: 98

[unreality]

will there be a Pirates 2?

[Guest]

There is a Pirates 2.

Edit: It's on the second page.

Edited June 17, 2008 by Frost

[EventHorizon]

Five pirates have obtained 100 gold coins and have to divide up the loot. The pirates are all extremely intelligent, treacherous and selfish (especially the captain).

The captain always proposes a distribution of the loot. All pirates vote on the proposal, and if half the crew or more go "Aye", the loot is divided as proposed, as no pirate would be willing to take on the captain without superior force on their side.

If the captain fails to obtain support of at least half his crew (which includes himself), he faces a mutiny, and all pirates will turn against him and make him walk the plank. The pirates start over again with the next senior pirate as captain.

What is the maximum number of coins the captain can keep without risking his life?

http://brainden.com/forum/index.php?showto...8&hl=pirate

repeated puzzle...