don't understand

[eos47]

I don't understand the clue that says "the five people are". Is that information supposed to help us because I don't get it.

[admin]

Hi eos47 -

Clues in the format: "The five people are A, B, C, D and E" can be extremely helpful when solving logic puzzles, as they allow you to eliminate quite a lot of squares from the solving grid.

Remember that every one of the five slots in that clue (A, B, C, D and E) are five different people, so none of the five items listed will ever be paired with another item from that list. This means you can eliminate a large number of possible pairings from the grid, i.e.

- A does not equal B
- A does not equal C
- A does not equal D
- A does not equal E
- B does not equal C
- B does not equal D
- B does not equal E
- C does not equal D
- C does not equal E
- D does not equal E

Hope this helps! :-)

- Stephen

[Laura]

I'm not very good at this yet, but find that the "5 people" clue usually adds that one piece of information that ties all the other clues together.

Only one puzzle I've done was missing this clue and I almost felt stranded.

[flutefish]

I find it helps to do this clue first. By writing down all these negative pairings first, it's easier to keep track of, and keeps me from making mistakes later.

[cayot]

I also do the 5 person clue first because that is when it seems most useful, although sometimes I refer back to it later. I'm definitely still refining my technique.

Hello to Laura and Flutefish and any other Cryptograms players.

[flutefish]

I wrote this once in the chat room, but here's my approach. It works for me.

1) Do the "5 people" clue first. Write down all the negative pairings.
2) Do all the positive associations given in the clues.
3) Do all the negative associations given in the clues.
4) Do the relative clues last (i.e., A has more of something than B).

The big key for me is cross-referencing everything the minute I know it. That is, making sure I transpose all the positives and negatives as I get new associations.

Hope someone finds that useful.

Hi back to Cayot and all the other Cryptogram players!

[MadSlantedPowers]

I do the 5 person clue first as well and put it into a spreadsheet. Then I go back and check those spots off and go through each clue individually. Sometimes I forget to check off all of the other associations at the time of each clue so that slows me down a bit later on. I keep going back to my spreadsheet and filling it in as it is a bit easier for me to see some of the impossibilities that way. The clue that I often have to wait on doing is the type that says, "Of A and B, one is C and the other is D." There often isn't enough information to be able to do anything with that at first, though if A and B or C and D are in the same category, I can mark off something.

[Loosewheel]

Of course it is to help! Process of elimination. Forinstance if they mention a persons name out of the 5 items. You can be sure that the person named doesn't have any of those 4 items. Hope this makes sense.

[bugman]

In addition to previous suggestions, I also like to make a list of who those 5 (people) are or can be. Sometimes a solution pops out of this

[MidnightLightning]

You can think of the list of "all 5" as one more category in the grid (though you'd have to track it separately on your own piece of paper, etc.). For example, if the clue were "the five people are Bill, Sally, the person with a pet cat, the person with a pet dog, and the person who likes the color blue" (given a puzzle comparing name, pet, and favorite color), you could make a pseudo grid with "person 1" is Bill, "person 2" is Sally, "person 3" is cat, etc. Then any negative associations applying to Bill, Sally, cat, dog, and blue could carry over to their "person X" association. Hence you might arrive at something like: Person 3 cannot be Bill (Person 1 is) or Sally (Person 2 is), nor Bruce or Sue (neither can have a pet cat, and Person 3 does), so Person 3 must be Judy (last choice).