Brain Teasers
100 Golfers
There are 100 golfers in the local match play contest. Each match has only 2 players. If a player loses a match, he is immediately eliminated from the contest. How many matches will be played to determine the winner?
Answer
If there is to be only one winner, then there are 99 losers, therefore there were 99 matches. You can also do this with math: in round 1 there would be 50 matches to produce 50 winners, round 2 would have 25 matches to produce 25 winners, round 3 would have 12 matches to produce 12 winners ( one person of the 25 winners would have to wait until later to play again ), round 4 would have 6 matches to produce 6 winners, round 5 would have 3 matches to produce 3 winners, round 6 would have 2 matches ( the player left out before would now play to make it an even field ) to produce 2 winners, these 2 would play for the championship. So: 50+25+12+6+3+2+1=99Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
In any knock-out competition, there is one less game than the number of players i.e. 83 players, 82 games; 91 players, 90 games. Simple.
No one would ever run a tournament like that, allowing one player three consecutive byes. A different player should get a bye each time there's an odd number of players.
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