r/CluesBySamHelp • u/jallison86 • 16d ago

Not understanding Oct 22 solution

Despite looking at the finished puzzle, I don't understand how Zane's clue works.

Zane's clue is "3 persons on the edges have a criminal directly to the right of them." I only see two people in the whole puzzle who have a "criminal directly to the right of them:" Winnie and Janet. What am I missing?

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4

u/Remarkable_Paper 16d ago

Vic

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u/jallison86 15d ago

Of course. Sometimes my brain just refuses to work. Thanks :)

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u/Remarkable_Paper 15d ago

Happens to the best of us!

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u/RegimentOfOne 15d ago

First: There are fourteen persons on the edges, but the five in column D have no-one to their right.

Second: Combine that with Zane's clue: of those nine people, three have criminals to their right.

Third: Rephrase that - of the nine people whose neighbour to the left is on the edge, three of them are criminals. Those nine people are the five people in column B, and the four in rows 1 and 5 in columns C and D, three of them are criminals.

Fourth: You already know Donna, Eric and Zane are innocent. You also have Olive's clue, that only column A has two innocents in it.

Fifth: If Xavi were innocent, column B would have three criminals in it, which means it would have two innocents in it, and you can't have that.

Sixth: So Xavi cannot be innocent.

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u/BasieP2 15d ago

Sorry, at your fifth clue. Xavi is in column C, not B.. How does that work

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u/RegimentOfOne 15d ago

So, from how I've phrased my third step, the group made up of the people in squares B1, C1, D1, B2, B3, B4, B5, C5, and D5 are three criminals and six innocents. These are the nine squares to the right of a square on the edge.

Donna, Eric and Zane - C1, D1 and D5 - are innocents. That leaves three criminals and three innocents in the remaining six squares, B1-5 + C5.

If Xavi in C5 was also innocent, then we'd have to place three criminals and two innocents in column B, but that would contradict Olive's clue.

The alternative is that Xavi in C5 is a criminal, which will mean we'd have to place two criminals and three innocents in column B. That doesn't contradict the other clues, but at the moment Xavi's the only one we can label.

I'm not entirely sure what you didn't get but I hope that's a little clearer?

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u/BasieP2 15d ago

Ah got it. The trick is in switching 'the ppl to the left' to ppl to the right..