Monday, October 06, 2008

Bus ticket game

There is this bus ticket game we used to play while on those long bus rides. This game can be played all over Maharashtra. Basically it involves the numbers on the top of the ticket. There are five types of tickets available in Maharashtra - the TMC bus tickets, the BMC bus tickets, the ST bus tickets, the AC ST bus tickets and the Asiads.

Now all of these tickets have nine numbers on top. In the TMC bus tickets and the AC ST bus tickets, these numbers are in English, in all the rest, the numbers are in Devanagari - but that does not matter to the game. The first three digits of the nine numbers are always separated from the remaining six either with a different type face, a different color, or a dash. The first three numbers are usually two digits - with 0 being the first numeral. The basic rules of the game are:
1) Consider the three numbers on the left as your target
2) The six numbers on the right are the numbers you have to add up to the target
3) Multiplication, division, addition and subtraction are allowed, no roots, exponentials or logs.
4) If the first three numbers is a three digit number, exponentials are allowed, still no roots. No squares or cubes by default though, only raised to the power of another numeral - you are lucky if there are 2s and 3s.
5) Two or more people play, whoever comes up with a correct equation first, gets a point. After both come up with a equation, you have to use the same numbers again in a different way.
6) You have to operate on single digits only, and not group adjacent numbers together (this rule can be relaxed by mutual consent, after a few rounds)
7) You HAVE to use all the numbers, not necessarily in order though

We played this game on many occassions. The stupid/hardcore/costly version is that if you do not do it by the next stop, you have to buy another ticket.

an example from a real ticket

012 - 248723

012=(2x4)-8+7+2+3
012=2-4+8+7+2-3
012=2-2+[(4x3)(8-7)]
012=2-(8/4)+7+3+2
012=(2/2)-(8-7)+(3x4)

you get the idea right... beware though, this can get really competitive as the number of solutions are infinite.

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