[ Post a Response | Puzzles Forum ]
Posted by Tournament
on 8/8/2009, 12:51 am, in reply to "Re: A Major Challenge for True Puzzlers"
This is definitely not a practical joke. I've spent over a week trying to solve this for the organization with which I work. After Google-ing the words, "puzzle forum," this site was the first in the results list. Also, I cannot guarantee there actually is an answer out there. I know for a fact that by simple reasoning, anything over 18 is impossible.
(Any given team plays 4 games, and those 4 opponents each have 3 additional opponents, hence 4 + (3x4)= 4 + 12 = 16 potential "connections." In a 14 team tournament, any team needs to "connect" to 13 other teams (it doesn't need to "connect" to itself). A 17 team set up is the limit. With anything over 18, there simply aren't enough potential "connections."
As I've posted, we already have 13 and 12. Maybe 14 is impossible for reasons that are beyond me. I have come close on several occasions. Here is one of my attempts where I came close.
Team Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Game 4
1 2 3 4 5
2 1 6 7 8
3 9 1 10 11
4 12 13 1 14
5 8 12 11 1
6 10 2 13 12
7 14 9 2 13
8 5 11 14 2
9 3 7 12 10
10 6 14 3 9
11 13 8 5 3
12 4 5 9 6
13 11 4 6 7
14 7 10 8 4
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