Reply To: Puzzles
@HARRY ‘NET LOSS’ in the News.
I believe Alice and Bob played the first match. Claire then had to have lost the second match in order for Alice to have played 17 games, Bob 15 and Claire 10. If I am also correct, from that point, there are 211 different ways the remaining games could have played out to give those same totals.
Just for fun 17+15+10= 42 / 2 players = 21 games played. With three different starting pairs 3*(1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256 + 512 + 1024 + 2048 + 4096 + 8192 + 16384 + 32768 + 65536 + 131072 + 262144 + 524288 + 1048576) = 6,291,453 possible game combinations.