araver

CELTS

DREAM - if 2 then D_ _ _ M since TREAT=0

Yup, that is close. EDIT: But the result for the question in the OP is incorrect. However, to get your attention, a couple more cases that might help. 2 ||| 15 = 5 5 ||| 21 = 10 7 ||| 28 = 12 7 ||| 40 = 10

CREAM SOLVE

Yeah, I really asked for it out loud. POSTS FILES

BRAIN MAFIA

Yeah, that's not what I meant. I did not mean to discourage you from trying, just trying to put you in the right direction. Lemme rephrase that: If you could do a strategy with the odds you are expecting, you would design a very efficient error correcting code. There's a thing called Hamming bound preventing that. Non-trivial cases when one happens to reach that bound have been mapped out since the 70s (for prime alphabets, so including binary). Mathematical proofs. One class is the one I gave you in the spoiler above. The other works for larger n. In basic terms, every bit of information you add is another entropy generator that messes up the cases. Only in perfect settings one can separate entropy in different "jars" efficiently. P.S. All of these codes are used in every bit of technology you currently use.

A solution with 50% odds is

There has been something similar posted: http://brainden.com/forum/topic/13034-- But it does not work for n=4. In short the optimal solution for other values of n (including n = 3) is: Now for n = 4, I do not know of an optimal solution.

WEEKS AVANT - 0 GARDE - 0 SEEDS - 3 EIDER - 0 HEADS - 2 EVENT - 1 Plainglazed +5 Phaze +10 BEERS - 3 LEEKS - 4 WEEKS - 5 Maurice +15 maurice - 174 + 15 = 189 Logophobic - 143 phaze - 112 + 10 = 122 plainglazed - 112 + 5 = 117 araver - 15 + 9 = 24 nana - 10

Not constructive, but only 174 possibilities to check.

_ E E _ S AVANT - 0 GARDE - 0 SEEDS - 3 EIDER - 0 HEADS - 2 EVENT - 1 Plainglazed +5 Phaze +10 BEERS - 3 LEEKS - 4

_ E E _ S Phaze +10 BEERS - 3

_ _ _ _ _ AVANT - 0 GARDE - 0 SEEDS - 3 EIDER - 0 HEADS - 2

_ _ _ _ _ AVANT - 0 GARDE - 0

Woot _ _ _ _ _

BLIMP

EERIE

CHIME

I am glad that you are trying to solve it (which is why I hit Reply ), but I can't help myself talking about it while you are trying, so I used spoilers (even though there are no major spoilers in my responses).

FATTY