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?

(In reply to Sneaky player by Happy)

The order of play is determined by the player's color. That is why the duffer had to play one game as each color to "transfer" his moves from one game to the other, and why he could play the same game on each board.

So "Make him play first," is inadequate (and almost meaningless) as a response. However, if you were to phrase it that each player wait one turn until after the duffer played an original move with his color on the other board, so that the boards were no longer identical, they could throw off his whole strategy.

Posted by TomM on 2002-09-10 18:00:25