Enigma 875 : Oh hell!

18 May 1996

WE PLAY a card game called “Oh Hell!”. In the first round eight cards are
dealt to each player, in the next round seven each, and so on, until in the
eighth round each player gets just one card.

Then in each round each player looks at his or her cards and predicts how
many “tricks” he or she will get when the cards are played in a whist-type
fashion. At the end of each round each player gets the number of points equal to
the number of tricks he or she has won plus a bonus of ten points if their
prediction was correct.

Players keep their own scorecard, and here is an example of a recent one of
mine, giving me a total of 56:

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In another game my total after five rounds was again 41, and again my final
total was even, but I noticed that the eight “totals so far” were all different
two-figure numbers such that the reverse of any one of the “totals so far” was
another of the “totals so far”.


What was my final score?

answer opened on Thursday 20 June. The Editor’s decision is final. Please send
entries to Enigma 875, New Scientist, King’s Reach Tower, Stamford Street,
London SE99 0BB. The winner of Enigma 869 was D. Vincent of Watford, Herts.

Answer to Enigma 869


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