CISRA Puzzle Competition 2007 - Solutions

This is the archive of the 2007 Puzzle Competition. Please visit the current competition site for information about the latest Puzzle Competition.

B.3 Association

Intuitive Leap: The puzzle text corresponds to results in a World Cup soccer/football tournament.

The story text contains several (more or less cryptic) clues about how to approach the puzzle.

  • 3 nanoseconds is a hint that "3" is useful in some way.
  • A queue is a first in first out (FIFO) data structure. This processor is said to work using a 'first about' rule, instead of a first out rule. Therefore, its acronym would be FIFA, which is the governing body of world football.
  • 'Goblet' - Another word for cup, hinting at the World Cup.
  • The word 'caps' - Each time a soccer player makes an appearance for his team, he is said to be "capped".
  • Space000 - This hint indicates that there may be some value in grouping numbers in threes, and that 000 may mean a space.

Where do we start? One thing to notice is that all of the digits are either 0, 1 or 2. We might extract the numbers and try grouping them in threes. We get this sequence: 

000 201 120 200 202 000 202 012 001 111 201 000 100 112 000 120
200 011 012 200 000 120 020 000 202 022 012 100 200 000 012 110
100 111 100 112 001 202 100 120 112 000 021 120 000 121 001 110

Remembering that '000' may mean a space, and noticing that there are 26 remaining three-digit combinations using the digits 0, 1, an 2, we can guess that the three-digit numbers correspond to the letters of the alphabet. 

000 space  100 I      200 R
001 A      101 J      201 S
002 B      102 K      202 T
010 C      110 L      210 U
011 D      111 M      211 V
012 E      112 N      212 W
020 F      120 O      220 X
021 G      121 P      221 Y
022 H      122 Q      222 Z

The numbers above can then decoded into the following message: 

SORT TEAMS IN ORDER OF THEIR ELIMINATION GO PAL

At this point it should be clear that what we're looking at is the results from a World Cup tournament, and the rest of the puzzle involves reconstructing the group tables and finals winners. (It's possible to come to this realization without finding the first hidden message.) This takes some time to work through, but it is straightforward if you know the format of World Cup tournaments. It's spelt out step by step below anyway.

The letters "GA", "GB", etc refer to "Group A" through to "Group H" - the eight groups of four teams in the round-robin stage of the World Cup. Looking at the first part of the puzzle: 

GA:CV0-0OF,GA:QP0-2SI

This tells us that in the first Group A matches, team "CV" drew 0-0 with team "OF" (so both teams gained 1 point on the group table), and team "QP" lost to team "SI" 0-2 (so team SI gets 3 points). The results at the end of the first round of matches are as follows (where "W", D", "F", "A", and "Pts" refer to wins, draws, goals for, goals against, and total points): 

Group A            Group B            Group C            Group D
Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts
 SI  1 0 2 0  3     EA  1 0 2 0  3    RT   1 0 2 0  3    WE   1 0 2 0  3
 CV  0 1 0 0  1     ON  1 0 1 0  3    ET   0 1 0 0  1    OU   1 0 2 0  3
 OF  0 1 0 0  1     KE  0 0 1 2  0    UA   0 1 0 0  1    AL   0 0 0 2  0
 QP  0 0 0 2  0     BR  0 0 0 1  0    US   0 0 0 2  0    OH   0 0 0 2  0

Group E            Group F            Group G            Group H
Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts
 DN  1 0 2 0  3     AY  1 0 2 0  3    JD   0 1 1 1  1    DE   1 0 2 0  3
 RI  0 1 0 0  1     RD  1 0 2 1  3    XY   0 1 1 1  1    UO   0 1 1 1  1
 FA  0 1 0 0  1     OZ  0 0 1 2  0    ER   0 1 0 0  1    MG   0 1 1 1  1
 NL  0 0 0 2  0     IO  0 0 0 2  0    NO   0 1 0 0  1    AM   0 0 0 2  0

After applying the next two rounds, the round-robin stage is over. The bottom two teams in each group are eliminated. Taking into account tie-breaking rules (use goal difference, then goals for, then head-to-head results), the group tables look like this: 

Group A            Group B            Group C            Group D
Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts
 SI  2 1 4 0  7     EA  2 1 3 0  7    ET   2 1 4 1  7    OU   2 0 3 1  6
 OF  1 2 2 0  5     ON  1 1 1 1  4    UA   1 2 2 0  5    AL   2 0 3 2  6
 CV  1 1 1 2  4     BR  1 1 1 1  4    RT   1 1 2 2  4    WE   1 1 4 3  4
 QP  0 0 0 5  0     KE  0 1 1 3  1    US   0 0 1 6  0    OH   0 1 2 6  1

Group E            Group F            Group G            Group H
Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts   Team W D F A Pts
 RI  1 1 3 2  4     RD  3 0 5 1  9    NO   1 2 1 0  5    DE   2 1 3 0  7
 DN  1 1 2 2  4     AY  1 1 3 3  4    ER   0 3 2 2  3    AM   2 0 3 3  6
 NL  1 1 2 3  4     OZ  0 2 2 3  2    XY   0 3 1 1  3    UO   0 2 2 3  2
 FA  0 3 0 0  3     IO  0 1 0 3  1    JD   0 2 3 4  2    MG   0 1 1 3  1

The order in which the teams were eliminated was: 

QP \
US  > Cannot qualify after round 2
IO /
CV \
KE |
BR |
RT |
OH |
WE |
NL  > Eliminated after round 3
FA |
OZ |
XY |
JD |
UO |
MG /

Which, when read down the page, gives: 

Quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

This isn't much of a hint, but we do know we're on the right track. The first knockout round has match results such as "RI:TA1-0SB". TA means the Top team in Group A, and SB means the Second team in Group B. Looking at the table, we can see that team SI finished first in Group A, and ON finished second in Group B. So SI beat ON 1-0.

The eliminated teams in this round are: 

RI: Second B    ON
RJ: Top C       ET
RK: Second A    OF
RL: Top D       OU
RM: Top E       RI
RN: Top G       NO
RO: Top F       RD
RP: Second G    ER

Which reads, left to right, "One to four in order".

In the quarter finals, winners from the first knockout round play each other. The matches and their results are: 

QQ: WI (winner of I): Top A    \
     vs                         SI 0-1 AL
    WJ (winner of J): Second D /

QR: WM (winner of M): Second F \
     vs                         AY 2-0 AM
    WN (winner of N): Second H /

QS: WK (winner of K): Top B    \
     vs                         EA 1-1(2-0) UA
    WL (winner of L): Second C /

QT: WO (winner of O): Second E \
     vs                         DN 0-0(0-2) DE
    WP (winner of P): Top H    /

So the next eliminated teams are: 

SI
AM
UA
DN

Which reads "Saudi Man" vertically - this could be a clue.

We're now down to the final four teams. An earlier clue was "One to four in order". But we still need to work out the finishing order. The semi-final matches are: 

SU: WQ (winner of Q): \
     vs                AL 1-1(2-0) AY
    WR (winner of R): /

SV: WS (winner of S): \
     vs                EA 0-0(0-1) DE
    WT (winner of T): /

In the third place match, the losing teams face each other to determine third and fourth place: 

TP: LU (loser of U): \
     vs               AY 2-1 EA
    LV (loser of V): /

And the final determines first and second place: 

FN: WU (winner of U): \
     vs                AL 0-0(11-10) DE
    WV (winner of V): /

So the final order of the top four teams is:

AL DE AY EA

Mohamed Al-Deayea is a Saudi Arabian goalkeeper who has more international caps than any other player, and AL DEAYEA is the solution.