perplexus.info :: Games : Simultaneous Chess

Simultaneous Chess (Posted on 2002-09-10)

Two reasonably competent chess players are discussing chess in a bar. A duffer comes up and challenges them to simultaneous matches, with the duffer playing white on one game, and black on the other. He offers a substantial bet on the outcome. However, since he's inexperienced, he will win the bet unless the two experienced players as a whole do better than the duffer. (That is, two draws or one win and one loss will result in the duffer winning the bet.)

The challenge is accepted, and play starts. After a few moves, the experienced players throw up their hands in disgust, and pay off the bet.

Question 1: What happened?

Question 2: Having accepted the challenge, what ought the experienced players to have done in order to win?

Submitted by Jim Lyon

Rating: 4.1667 (12 votes)

Solution: (Hide)

What happened? The duffer just copies each expert's move to the other board. He is thus guaranteed to achieve either two draws or one win and one loss.
The bet having been accepted, what should the experts do to avoid this? My favorite answer is to set up two chess clocks. If the duffer is copying experts' moves, his white game will always consume more time than the expert's white game, and his black game will always consume more time than the expert's black game. If the experts play a reasonably balanced but slow game, they can arrange for the duffer to run out of time on both clocks before either expert does.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)

Subject	Author	Date
re(2): Your answer to question 2 is incomplete	Dej Mar	2008-02-09 23:34:54
No Subject	alex	2006-08-05 02:59:20
In a movie	pcbouhid	2005-11-22 06:39:05
yep	Eric	2003-12-01 11:09:14
No Subject	asad	2002-12-24 12:59:10
re: adjourn	Jim Lyon	2002-09-12 14:18:07
re: Play to lose	friedlinguini	2002-09-11 10:49:12
Play to lose	C Tanaka	2002-09-11 07:27:20
adjourn	Cheradenine	2002-09-10 23:51:08
re: Your answer to question 2 is incomplete	levik	2002-09-10 18:41:54
Your answer to question 2 is incomplete	TomM	2002-09-10 18:00:25
Sneaky player	Happy	2002-09-10 10:49:37

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