Three 3 x 3 grids overlap by one cell, as in the image.

Each grid is to have 3 words by reading from left to right, and 3 by reading down.

Find a solution, using the starter letters, where all words are unique to the layout, and all are in general common (but not necessarily frequent) English usage.

T                         K                                     W                 N

As more than one solution is possible, you might like to consider that the letters A to Z have respective values of 1 to 26, and my solution has a sum value of 279. Can you top that?

But then you might like to be challenged by this frequency chart modified to a point value:

     A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M 
     3 20 12 10  1 16 17  8  5 23 22 11 14
     N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
     6  4 19 25  9  7  2 13 21 15 24 18 26

My score for the same solution is 158 which is just 1 better than when an "O" replaces an "A".

In both cases all letters are to be counted just once, or rather, each location; yes, the starters too.

(In reply to No Calculations made by brianjn)

The following program calculates the scores of my solution as 285 and 157 for the ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ordering and the ETAOINSHRDLCUMWFGYPBVKJXQZ ordering respectively.

Dej Mar's scores 298 and 195 respectively by the two methods.

OPEN "solution.txt" FOR INPUT AS #1
DATA 3,20,12,10,1,16,17,8,5,23,22,11,14
DATA 6,4,19,25,9,7,2,13,21,15,24,18,26

freq$ = SPACE$(26)
FOR i = 1 TO 26
 READ p
 MID$(freq$, p, 1) = MID$("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", i, 1)
NEXT

PRINT freq$

DO
 LINE INPUT #1, l$
 FOR i = 1 TO LEN(l$)
   ix1 = INSTR("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", MID$(l$, i, 1))
   tot1 = tot1 + ix1
   ix2 = INSTR(freq$, MID$(l$, i, 1))
   tot2 = tot2 + ix2
 NEXT
LOOP UNTIL EOF(1)

PRINT tot1, tot2

Posted by Charlie on 2008-06-29 12:01:49