Bang H8!

PUZZLE #3 - SOLUTION

You found 5 dominos in your start envelope. You are given that the domino with 0 and 1 pips, or (0,1), is A. You are also given M, N, and Z in domino-speak, each with successively more total pips. The 26 playable dominos (excluding the (0,0) and the (6,6)) map to the alphabet. Expert teams had to figure out how, while recreational teams were given rules to help determine the mapping. In a nutshell, lower pip counts map to earlier letters, and in the event of a tie pip count (e.g., (1,4) and (2,3)), the domino with the lowest single pip side comes first ((1,4) comes before (2,3) because of the 1). So the mapping is:
  • A=(0,1)
  • B=(0,2)
  • C=(1,1)
  • D=(0,3)
  • E=(1,2)
  • F=(0,4)
  • G=(1,3)
  • H=(2,2)
  • I=(0,5)
  • J=(1,4)
  • K=(2,3)
  • L=(0,6)
  • M=(1,5)
  • N=(2,4)
  • O=(3,3)
  • P=(1,6)
  • Q=(2,5)
  • R=(3,4)
  • S=(2,6)
  • T=(3,5)
  • U=(4,4)
  • V=(3,6)
  • W=(4,5)
  • X=(4,6)
  • Y=(5,5)
  • Z=(5,6)
There were 3 versions of this puzzle, and the 3 possible answers were: CLUMP, EARTH, or SWING.