Three cards, a king, a queen and a nine are face down on a table. One a spade, one a club and one a diamond, not necessarily in the same order...Read on...
The Riddle
Three cards, a king, a queen and a nine are placed face down on the table. One is a spade, the second is a club and the third is a diamond, not necessarily in the same order.
You have to identify the three cards from the clues:
- The nine is immediately to the right of the spade.
- The club is between the queen and the diamond.
Recommended time to solve 6 minutes.
Hint: Identify and use the most important clue first.
Solution to the Identify the Three Cards Riddle
The second clue is the most important of the two because it fixes at least One unknown element in the middle of the three positions with total certainty.
- The club is between the queen and the diamond.
This second clue not only fixes the color of the middle card as club, it also implies two positional possibilities:
- Leftmost card the queen, the rightmost card color diamond, or,
- Leftmost card color diamond, the rightmost card as the queen.
As we proceed further by reasoning on the first clue, this partially certain information will surely be very useful to get the solution.
Reasoning using the first clue
The first clue is:
- The nine is immediately to the right of the spade.
This implies:
- The middle position has already been assigned to club and there is no RIGHT to the rightmost position. So, spade must be the color of the leftmost card. Isn't it?
- This also fixes color of the rightmost card color as the remaining color diamond, and of course,
- Nine is the middle card. The middle card details are fully known now. It is Nine of club.
So far so good.
Summary of the result:
Leftmost card color spade, middle card is nine of club and rightmost card color is diamond.
Reasoning using the second set of results from the second clue we got earlier
We already know the two possibilities we got earlier from the second clue:
- Leftmost card the queen, the rightmost card color diamond, or,
- Leftmost card color diamond, the rightmost card as the queen.
That was earlier. But now we know for certain that the rightmost card color is diamond. That is clinching. The first possibility of leftmost card as the queen and rightmost card color diamond is a certainty now.
We already know leftmost card color as spade. This gives us the solution:
- The leftmost card is queen of spade,
- The middle card is nine of club, and,
- The rightmost card is king of diamond. This is the first time the king comes into consideration as the leftover card.
Do you find it complex? It is not, though we are not usually habituated with this kind of disciplined systematic reasoning which is essential in solving this type of a reasoning puzzle. As some of you might have guessed, reasoning puzzles may come in quite complex forms.
If you are addicted to complexities, you will find a lot of it in the link Reasoning and logic puzzles. That type of complexities create an unholy load on the mind and take away the pleasure of solving a challenging but not very complex puzzle for fun.
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