Listener 4321 - Solitaire Ii By Xanthippe

[Cruncher]

Looks like my all-correct run is at an end...

[Whenland]

To understand hexadecimal it's perhaps a good idea to come to grips with binary first, not forgetting that there are 10 types of people who understand binary - those who do and those who don't!

[captaincoma]

Maybe I'm missing something but I still can't see how 12ac can be odd. Is there any reason to devote more time to this puzzle? I doubt it.

[crosswhit99]

What is preventing it being odd captaincoma ?

[AndrewG-S]

Superb puzzle, lots of logic and not too much maths. Not as intimidating as it first looks once you get into it. Many thanks xanthippe for a fabulous challenge!

[Gitto]

I have one answer and if its wrong I am giving up. Could someone confirm that answer for me (i.e. I'll e-mail it, and all I need is a yes or no) - I only ask because if my logic is flawed I'll go mad before I solve this

[Scorpius]

I'm pretty hopeless with any non-decimal base, but bases above ten are the stuff of nightmares for me. Still, once I got the hang of things using an internet hex/decimal converter, getting most of the entries was more a question of logic than maths. I think I have the right solution, subject to checking, but the 3- and 4-letter words didn't work out as I think they should have, so I need to play the game again. As I have a 9-letter word that I can see is thematic in a surprising way, I think my grid is correct.

I think the preamble is very misleading, if not inaccurate, in saying, "Having deduced all entries, solvers must play out a game of Solitaire." It is not possible to deduce all entries from the clues alone, and the ambiguities can only be resolved by playing the game. In anticipation of the penultimate sentence of the preamble, the fourth sentence should have said something like, "Having deduced all entries as far as possible, solvers etc."
I know we're supposed to read all the preamble first, but in a puzzle such as this, with a very complex set of instructions for playing the game, I'm sure I wasn't the only one to defer reading past the fourth sentence in the interest of getting the grid filled first, before getting to grips with the game's procedures. An early warning of ambiguities was necessary in my view.

If anyone is still working on the puzzle, they might these two links useful:

http://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/hex-to-decimal.htm
http://www.csgnetwork.com/hexmultdivcalc.html

The first is a conversion program (there's also a parallel decimal to hex page); the second can save some time working through the choices that are divisible by 6 or 7.

[aldanna]

Numericals are not for me, so I have handed this over to Himself. He is quite happy with hexadecimal, and I have found him a calculator app on my phone. He is continuing to work on it but it seems to be fairly slow from where I sit. Impressed by those in the Friday club!

[olichant]

Gitto, of course - feel free. olichant08 at g mail dot com.

[starwalker]

Lovely puzzle that was long on logic and short on the actual maths. A few more like this and I might start to like numericals ! Thanks Xanthippe.

[TheBear69]

Scorpius, it is not necessary to play the game to resolve the ambiguities; all that is needed for that is to read the part of preamble that describes the steps. And the preamble makes it clear that something along those lines is needed; you admittedly deferred reading important info. So not misleading at all.

[Pasquin]

Re Listener pre-rambles, time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted, as somebody once said. A very delightful and satisfying puzzle, all the more so because I had no idea where it was going until I got there. Thanks, Xanthippe.

[doctormatt]

Yes done after a late start. Enjoyable.

[sunny-dave]

Full grid - tick

Ambiguities resolved - tick

Three words - tick

Thematic link - I think so

Convinced I'm correct ... errr ... not sure

:-{}

[jim360]

I only completed it this morning, having made a small error at the last hurdle that gave me gibberish for the final two words. All done, now. An entertaining little puzzle, although at times I found I needed a little too much guesswork. Although probably it wasn't necessary really... I'll have to figure out the correct logical route later.

[borealis]

Lovely puzzle. One of my favourites this year. I found no ambiguities in the logical sequence to fill the grid, if only one item from the "game" part of the preamble was taken into account. There was a good way to resolve crosswhit99's ambiguity without recourse to the game.
Thank you very much, Xanthippe, for numers, words and above all logic.

[logophile]

.... and even the puzzle's number is thematic - bravo Xanthippe !

[olichant]

For anyone looking for a more word-based crossword fix - and a hard one - the Schadenfreude in Cam 73 looks interesting - http://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/magazine/crossword.

[fallster]

I thank Xanthippe for an interesting end-game that wasn't too hard. The preamble instructions on how to play the game made it so that there wasn't a lot of backtracking needed.

[Pasquin]

Another "final crossword" by Araucaria in the Guardian today at .

***Spoiler*** article at .