Mastermind XII - With Tutorial!

Usually, for an example, I would tell you what the answer is, and then list a guess and show you how I would score it.

This time I will not show you the answer. We will figure it out together. All you need to know is after each guess you will receive a clue that tells you how many colors you have right in total, and how many are in the right place.

The clues are given in this form:
1/0 - means you have 1 of the colors right and it is not in the right place.
2/0 - means you have 2 of the colors right and they are not in the right place.
1/1 - means you have 1 of the colors right and it IS in the right place.
2/1 - means you have 2 colors right and 1 of them is in the right place.
3/2 - means you have 3 of the colors right and 2 of them are in the right place.


Let's start the game.

Let's say the second guess is:

Red Orange Pink Indigo and the clue given is 1/0. Hmmm.

Well, this gives us information, but not enough to rule anything out yet.

What this tells us is either:
A) Red or Orange is one of our colors and Blue, Green, Pink, and Indigo are none of them, or
B) one of the colors is Blue or Green, 1 of the colors is Pink or Indigo, and Red AND Orange are not any of the colors.

Are you still with me?

The only way we can get 1 color right based on these 2 clues is if either:

Red Orange Blue Green *Red or Orange is one of our colors
Red Orange Pink Indigo *and Blue, Green, Pink and Indigo are none of our colors

Or

Red Orange Blue Green *Blue OR Green is one of our colors
Red Orange Pink Indigo *AND Pink OR Indigo is one of our colors
which would mean that NONE of our colors are Red or Orange.

We can also rule out Pink and Indigo in position only.

Red........Red........Red........Red
Blue.......Blue.......Blue.......Blue
Yellow....Yellow....Yellow....Yellow
White.....White.....White.....White
Green.....Green.....Green.....Green
Orange...Orange...Orange...Orange
Violet.....Violet.....Violet.....Violet
Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo
Pink.......Pink.......Pink.......Pink



I can't draw it here, but at this point (on my clue list, not the master list), I would draw BIG parenthesis encompassing both Red and Orange as a visual clue that one of these could be one of our colors. Then I would put parenthesis around (Blue Green) and ( Pink Indigo), also isolating them as one of the potential colors.

Our sheet should look something like this:

Red........Red........Red........Red
Blue.......Blue.......Blue.......Blue
Yellow....Yellow....Yellow....Yellow
White.....White.....White.....White
Green.....Green.....Green.....Green
Orange...Orange...Orange...Orange
Violet.....Violet.....Violet.....Violet
Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo
Pink.......Pink.......Pink.......Pink



( Red Orange) ( Blue Green ) 1/0
( Red Orange ) ( Pink Indigo ) 1/0
*remember the parenthesis around Red and Orange is a one big set of parenthesis*

We have just confidently eliminated Red and Orange as possible colors.
Our last clue was:
Blue Green Pink Indigo and the clue was 2/1.

But, does this tell us anything else?

Yes!

We had already ruled out Pink and Indigo as positional colors. But, let's analyze that Blue and Green scenario.

We know that Blue OR Green is one of our colors, AND we know that the one that is right is in the right place.
Therefore, Blue NOR Green can be in the third or fourth positions!

Red........Red........Red........Red
Blue.......Blue.......Blue.......Blue
Yellow....Yellow....Yellow....Yellow
White.....White.....White.....White
Green.....Green.....Green.....Green
Orange...Orange...Orange...Orange
Violet.....Violet.....Violet.....Violet
Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo
Pink.......Pink.......Pink.......Pink

It may not seem like much, but notice how that fourth column is starting to shape up quite nicely.

At this point, we can try a variety of things. This is also the point where if you polled 6 Masterminders, you'd probably get 6 different answers on what to do next.

We could start with Blue, X, X, X and try to guess what the other colors and positions are based on what we see is still available for those positions, or we could use more Red and Orange "dud" guesses to try and isolate the last two colors.

One thing you DO NOT want to do is guess Pink and Indigo in your next guess. We already know it's one of them, and guessing them both, no matter what position is not going to help. One or the other, but not both. Based on our list of available colors, we can also deduce that the remaining color is either White or Violet.

Here's the problem with the last 2 colors. Forget about position for right now. Let's just concentrate on the possible combinations of the remaining two colors.

We have:
Pink-White
Pink-Violet
Indigo-White
Indigo-Violet

The problem is, there is only one combination above that is going to give you 2 correct. There is one combination where you would get 0 correct. Either one of those clues would be nice, but that still leaves two clues that won't be as much help. The remaining two combinations are going to tell you that you have one of the colors right.

So what do we do?

Good question! Like I said here is where you would get 6 different answers on what to do next. But for the sake of progress, we'll use a "partial dud" guess.

We already know Blue is in the first position. Yellow is one of our colors and can only go in the second or third position. So, we'll put it second.

Since we know that White or Violet is one of our colors, but available in the last 3 positions, we'll key on Pink OR Indigo.
We'll use Indigo as our "dud" and put it in the last position again. We already know that IF it is one of our colors, it does not belong there. We'll just roll the dice on White.

So our guess is:

Blue Yellow White Indigo and we get a clue of 3/1.

Well, that was no help. Is our third color White or Indigo?

Well, we know our 3/1 in the right place is Blue. So, let's start ruling out positional colors. We know that Yellow isn't in the second position, that White isn't the third one, and we had already ruled out Indigo for the last column.

Red........Red........Red........Red
Blue.......Blue.......Blue.......Blue
Yellow....Yellow....Yellow....Yellow
White.....White.....White.....White
Green.....Green.....Green.....Green
Orange...Orange...Orange...Orange
Violet.....Violet.....Violet.....Violet
Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo
Pink.......Pink.......Pink.......Pink

Well, that does confirm that Yellow goes in the third position and that no other color can occupy that spot:

Red........Red........Red........Red
Blue.......Blue.......Blue.......Blue
Yellow....Yellow....Yellow....Yellow
White.....White.....White.....White
Green.....Green.....Green.....Green
Orange...Orange...Orange...Orange
Violet.....Violet.....Violet.....Violet
Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo.....Indigo
Pink.......Pink.......Pink.......Pink



Now, back to our question. Is our third color White or Indigo?
Well, based on our remaining info, we can deduce a couple of scenarios.

Scenario 1
First, If Indigo is our color, it can only go in the second position.
Second, IF Indigo is our 3rd color, our 4th color cannot be White, leaving Violet as the final color.
So, our next guess would be Blue, Indigo, Yellow, Violet.

Scenario 2
If White is our 3rd color, Pink is our 4th color because it cannot be Indigo.
But, White AND Pink are still available in the 2nd and 4th positions.
So, 50/50 guess on that one. Either we guess Blue, White, Yellow, Pink or we guess Blue, Pink, Yellow, White.

Hopefully, our next guess is the answer and we are declared the winner. But, if not, it will provide us the information we need to solve it.

Is one guess better than another? Again, think about it before going to the next post. DON'T PEEK!

At this point, I would like previous Masterminders to chime in. If you have any ideas, shortcuts or clues that I may have missed - we want to know!

If you are new and want to play and have questions - throw them out!


I will start a new game FOR NEW PLAYERS ONLY tomorrow at noon EST. I'll put up a couple of Franklin half dollars as a prize.

Even if you want to play and don't have any questions, at least post and let me know that you are going to participate.

The game will be just like the sample above. I will choose 4 colors from the list of 9.

Hopefully, some of you that have followed the Mastermind series and have wanted to play will now jump in.

Thanks xshift! I will host one soon after this one that you can play in!

Hang in there, maybe watching one will help with the withdrawals you're having. Like second hand smoke to a quitter!

sounds fun -- I'd like in!