Online
To play the game, take cards alternately. You win if you get all the occurrences of the same letter. (e.g. AN, ON and LINE contain all occurrences of the letter N)
This is a game for two players.
To play the game, take words alternately.
You win if you get all the occurrences of the same letter (e.g. AN, ON and LINE contain all occurrences of the letter N).
Can you devise a strategy so that you never lose?
Can you explain your strategy?
EAT | AN | LAF | IT |
LINE | IF | LOT | ON |
FOE |
Look at all of these games. What do you notice about the strategies they employ?
- Noughts and Crosses
- Online
- Fifteen
- Jam
We suggest tackling them in the order given.
Printable NRICH Roadshow resource.
Click here for a poster of this problem.
We don't usually publish solutions to games but as often is the case - there are exceptions.
We received this email from the FE teacher at Cambridge Regional College:
I think that it was a success story because Oscar used a strategic approach and systematic testing in order to find the strategy of one of the NRICH games - a completely new vision of mathematics for him (something different from sums and functional skills 'real like problems'. Moreover, he put his line of thoughts in writing and I took some photos to support his work.
Oscar has recently taken maths exam at Level 1 Functional Skills and is moving to Level 2 next year.
Here is his work
NRICH Oscars work.docx
We received this email from the FE teacher at Cambridge Regional College:
I think that it was a success story because Oscar used a strategic approach and systematic testing in order to find the strategy of one of the NRICH games - a completely new vision of mathematics for him (something different from sums and functional skills 'real like problems'. Moreover, he put his line of thoughts in writing and I took some photos to support his work.
Oscar has recently taken maths exam at Level 1 Functional Skills and is moving to Level 2 next year.
Here is his work
NRICH Oscars work.docx