Dec Virtual Hunt — Curtain Falls (Q9)

In my opinion, every puzzle has inter alia a form and shape. These two elements are blended together to form a unique pattern. Those of us who enjoy solving puzzles—any kind of puzzle—know that it is often important to figure out the pattern of the puzzle first before proceeding on to solve it.

For a while now, I've noticed that some treasure hunters can arrive at the solutions in a much more efficient manner; they spend much lesser time to solve the clues than that of the average hunters. For example, in my KK Challenge 2 last August, the winning team finished the hunt with a good one hour ahead of its nearest challenger. How did they do it?

In the game of chess, we also have a similar situation. The experienced player can save a lot of time in the opening, making moves almost without thinking! He knows certain principles. For example, he knows that the most efficient way to open the game is to move the central pawns; then develop the minor pieces (usually the knights followed by the bishops); then castle; bring the rooks to the central files; and then open up the game. Of course there are other general principles to follow, e.g. develop with a threat and with a view of controlling the central squares, try to give a job to every single piece etc. In fact, one can save a lot of time by knowing the general approach to deal with the puzzle!

About a month ago, I posted an interesting treasure hunt question in this blog:

Q) Distress call short of a month?

A) 24 JAM @ KLINIK MALAYSIA

How would you approach the above question? It will be quickly noticed that the word "distress" might be an anagram indicator. If indeed it's an anagram indicator, then perhaps the solver is required to rearrange the letters found in CALL to form another word. He probably needs to find other words with similar meanings with CALL to be anagrammed. Imagine the number of possibilities he needs to sift through!

Then he has to think of something which has a similar meaning with the word "month". That something is then to be taken away from whatever that he has managed to derive from CALL. The possible combinations can be quite daunting, and if considered from that point of view, may be almost impossible to solve!

But the experienced hunter will not waste too much time on such seemingly endless possibilities. He merely starts his task by concentrating on that word "month". Since that word is to be taken away from something, it pays to narrow down the possibilities by figuring out the "month" first. Keeping the "month" in his mind, he then tries to figure out the possible words that can fit "distress call". You will realise that the number of possibilities becomes substantially lesser now. I think the solver will very quickly find the word MAYDAY, because that word contains MAY, which is a month that is to be taken away (short of a month). So that will leave him with DAY, and that is equal to 24 HOURS or 24 JAM.

A few weeks after I posted the above question, I went to KL to hunt in the Be An Angel (Beautiful Gate) Hunt clerked by Michael Pang. I discussed one of the questions:

Q) Dance studio without its 2 students.

A) POLK AUDIO

In my comments, I suggested that it's better to fashion the question like this:

Q) Dance studio without its 2 first students.

Again, we are faced with a deletion clue (without). Like I said, I said aloud, "Look for UDIO."; and my team member said, "No, look for STI." There was a bit of a confusion because of the missing word—first—in the question. But one thing is clear—we were both approaching the question from "its 2 students". It made sense to do so, because once we could figure out that part of the question, then we could narrow down the possibilities for the "dance studio" substantially. Otherwise, the word "dance" might be an anagram indicator, and we might need to anagram "studio" or other words with similar meanings. Just think of the many possibilities!

And now, finally, we come to Q9 of my December Virtual Hunt:

Q9) A violent disorder without the edge?

Can you see that the pattern of the question is almost identical to the 2 questions discussed above? We are essentially faced with the task of figuring something out and then to take away (deletion — without) "edge" from that something. By adopting the more efficient approach, we need to figure out "edge" first, if only to narrow down the possibilities for "A violent disorder".

Before proceeding to the solution, I'd like to discuss the flow of the question, because I've received a number of submissions indicating possible confusions. Some people have tried to find something on a signboard, removed the first and last letters (without the edge), and then finally anagrammed the left-over letters to suit "A violent disorder". For example:

SELVERT without the "edge" becomes ELVER;

Then anagram the ELVER by means of the indicator violent, to get REVEL which can mean DISORDER.

Others did it slightly differently; they anagrammed something found on a signboard, and by deliberately meneuvering some letters to go to the start and end of a resulting word, they then deleted those start/end letters to get something with a similar meaning with "A violent disorder".

Looking at the flow of the question, I think the correct interpretation is to do something with the "A violent disorder" first, and then followed by removing the "edge"; not the other way round. Therefore, if indeed an anagram operation is involved here, then that operation must come first before removing the "edge". However, one might argue that it's still possible to anagram SELVERT by not disturbing the S and T, and then only later remove them from the resulting word. I suppose it's possible, but in that case I fail to see the significance of "edge". I could have simply instructed to remove the S and T without the need to say "edge" at all. That would be much simpler!

My other objection is that the word "edge" is singular. So if I had intended to remove the S and T, I would have said something like "... without the edgeS".

And now we come to a minor psychological discussion. Why did I use "A violent disorder"? As I said earlier, the experienced hunter will quickly zoom in to the word "edge", so that when he can figure that word out, he will be home free! So I had no choice but to lure his attention away from "edge" to "A violent disorder". I knew that his concentration will then be given to "A violent disorder" almost exclusively, thus forgetting the simpler approach via the "edge". Just imagine the number of possibilities for "A violent disorder"!

Grandmaster Margaret hit a stumbling block trying to figure out that "A violent disorder" the whole night and literally had to sleep over the question. But then the next morning, she suddenly saw through my psychological trick, apparently quickly investigated on the "edge" and solved the question shortly after!

So to repeat the clue:

Q9) A violent disorder without the edge?

EDGE = HEM

A VIOLENT DISORDER = A MAYHEM

Therefore, A MAYHEM without the HEM = A MAY

And here perhaps many would come to another dead end. But not grandmasters Margaret and Jayaram. From this point, they quickly saw that this was a "Double Jeopardy"** question.

A9) FRESH CHICKEN


Because CHICKEN = AYAM (Malay)

fresh = anagram indicator

Therefore, rearrange the AYAM gives A MAY.

Looks impossible to solve, huh? Well, I designed this question in view of the 3 weeks to solve it. Little did I know that grandmaster Margaret took barely 12 hours to solve it—and at least half of those hours spent sleeping! I must ask her husband if she talks about hunt questions in her sleep!

I wish to thank all of you who've tried out my questions. I hope you have had fun cracking your head! I'll be busy working on a hunt in a few weeks' time, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to do another virtual hunt soon. But I will try to do another if I can find the time.

** See the 3rd comment for further explanation on "Double Jeopardy".