Luna levitated three bits off the table, leaving 4 behind. A hand reached over and took three more. Luna responded by flipping the table away in anger.
"How exactly art thou doing that? Thou art rigging the game, we know you are." Nick grinned and accepted the bits as she hoofed them over, adding more to his total.
"Well, you could just quit now. You've only lost... 1000 bits now. Honestly I'm shocked you kept it up this long."
The lunar alicorn floated the table back into place, and magiced another 25 bits on the table. "Again. And reexplain the rules, maybe we missed something."
"Fine, fine. Twenty-five bits on the table. We take turns, and on each turn we can pick up one, two, or three bits. Whoever picks up the last bit loses," Nick explained. "I win, I get your 25 bits. You win, I give you 100 bits. Simple. Now, you go first."
Luna huffed indignantly and swiped two bits off the table. She had tried every combination, but it just wasn't working. Three, then two, then three again? A series of ones? Nothing but threes? Failures, every one of them, and while the royal treasury would not even notice the thousand bits she had lost, her pride certainly did.
"You know, Luna, there is a trick to this. If you really want to, I could tell you."
"We refuse to be mocked in such a manner. We will find the secret on our own power, or die trying."
"Isn't that a tad extreme?"
"No."
Nick shrugged. He'd been running this little carnival game for Luna for over an hour now, with 40 wins in a row under his belt. Frankly, it was sad to watch. Sighing, he stood up. "That's enough for now, Luna. I need to get to bed. Sweet dreams."
"Oh, we will ensure thou has sweet dreams, Nicholas. We would never deny that to a friend."
Nick dreamed of a nice, calm ocean that night. He floated on a small raft, lounging back and enjoying the peaceful sounds. The seagulls flying overhead. The waves lapping at the sides of the raft. Luna setting up a table. Wait, what?!
"Luna? What are you doing in my dream? I thought you had to go look for nightmares!" Nick scrambled to his feet, eyeing his friend suspiciously.
"Normally we would be, but we have buisness to attend to! Come, let us play another round. I think I will win this time for sure!"
"Ugh, maybe I'll just let you win."
"Do that and we will toss thee in the water and break this raft. Thou can still experience terror in a dream, even if 'tis just an illusion."
"Changed my mind! Let's get started."
The next morning, Nick woke up with a large pile of bits at the foot of his bed, and a note reading "Thou art the absolute worst. But we will find the solution by taking this game to Twilight and challenging her! Surely with our experience against you, she will lose. -Luna".
"Oh boy... if anyone, er, anypony can figure out the trick, it's Sparky. I just hope Luna doesn't get too upset when..."
"How in the #$@%#$!?"
"...nevermind, I can hear her from here. Guess Sparky figured it out fast." He paused for a second. "Wait, if Sparky figured it out, she'd tell Luna. Crud. I'm dead, aren't I?"
There was a deep blue flash of teleportation behind him. "It would be wise for thou to start running, yes."
"I'll just... go jump in the moat myself, save you the trouble of tossing me in there."
"Good. Thy punishment would have been more severe, but now that we know thy secret we can finally one-up our dear sister at a game! We are so excited."
"Well, have fun. If you use the trick right..." she whispered it into his ear. "Yup. If you do that, you'll win every time, guaranteed. Have fun pranking Celly."
And with that, Nick changed into his bathing suit and went swimming in the moat.
"Ah, what nice water temperature today. I could stay here a while."
"How even?! We did everything right!
NICHOLAS!"
"Or not. I better start running!"
I figured out how Celestia won.
Turn one, 25 remaining.
Celestia goes first, she takes three.
Luna takes three.
Turn two, 19 remaining.
Celestia takes two.
Luna takes two.
Turn three, 15 remaining.
Celestia takes one.
Luna takes one.
Turn four, 13 remaining.
Celestia takes two.
Luna takes two.
Turn five, 9 remaining.
Celestia takes three.
Luna takes three.
Turn six, 3 remaining.
Celestia takes two.
Luna takes one.
0 remain.
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Yes, but this is Nick we're talking about here, he doesn't care
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Ok well that's not how it went down in Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy but I cannot find a fault in your logic.
Well done.
theres a few typos in this chapter
Poor Luna, I was really rooting for her to win too!! T_T
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I mean..who doesn't?
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I'd say....some of each, but more Evil Wicked, due to you picking on the REAL Best Princess (Luna) too much =P
The actual strategy is this.
You go second.
Every time your friend choose 1, you pick 3
They pick 2, you grab 2.
They say 3, you knock 1.
If you do right, you should have them at 5 items.
Ohhhh this sounds like a fun game!
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You are correct.
Just to illustrate for others.
Because, we are trying to make the other person take the last one, whoever takes 5 loses. So the goal of the game is to make the other guy take 5. Luckily (not really) we can control which coin the other guy starts on from the beginning, by making rounds (their turn + your turn) always end after four coins have been taken.
It starts on 25: no matter what, you can end it on 21. Meaning, you can make their turn start with twenty-one coins left.
From there, you can force end turns on 17, 13, 9, and finally on 5.
All you have to do, is make the total amount of coins taken per round equal four coins; the number just outside their span of control, yet remaining well within yours.
This means, that you can also continuously add four coins to the total, to throw off people trying to figure out the trick.
Or you can also increase the amount a person can take. Just remember to adjust the total number of coins.
To illustrate this.
You might notice, that if you subtract the last coin from the equation, that you're left with twenty-four coins: which is divisible by four. You might also notice that all the force end numbers (21, 17, 13, 9, and 5) were one more than a multiple of four.
So if you adjust the game to being able to take five coins per turn, you must have force ends every six coins. You will also need the beginning number of coins be one more than a multiple of six.
Wow this is long. This is what happens when you dissect math games.
Better pranking through mathemagics.
25 \equiv 1 \pmod{4}
?Poor Luna, her feeble skills are no match for the power of mathematical induction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KABcmczPdg
Actually, the trick is to let your opponent go first, and then take however many coins adds up to four per round.
If Luna takes 3, Nick takes 1.
If Luna takes 2, Nick takes 2.
If Luna takes 1, Nick takes 3.
The end result is that the last round will always start with one coin left for whoever goes first.
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This one's a meme. Specifically "yo dawg" is originally from Pimp My Ride, and has been phased out in favor of Inception references that accomplish the same purpose without having to use 90's speak.
The game's always rigged. The only way to win is to play the other players (and I guess that one blackjack thing, but that ends up being of limited effectiveness because they'll bar you if you take too much of their money but don't otherwise care about the ways money changes hands)
Simpel yet brilliant ♡