A chess tournament is taking place on knock-out terms (the one who loses the match is out of the game).
(a) If 10 matches are played in total, how many players participated?
(b) If 20 players took part in the tournament, how many matches were played?

John replied, when asked how old he was. In 2 years he will be twice as old as he was five years ago.' How old is he ?

For this puzzle, you might have to find logic in something illogical. But hey, it's fun and a healthy little break from your strenuous puzzle-solving sessions.

Can you decipher the meaning in the following cluster of letters?

ITIT,NCENTCENT

In a chess board, the queen piece can move horizontally, vertically and diagonally freely. The picture represents the same.Can you place 8 queens on the board in a manner that none of the queens can attack each other?

our enemy challenges you to play Russian Roulette with a 6-cylinder pistol (meaning it has room for 6 bullets). He puts 2 bullets into the gun in consecutive slots, and leaves the next four slots blank. He spins the barrel and hands you the gun. You point the gun at yourself and pull the trigger. It doesn't go off. Your enemy tells you that you need to pull the trigger one more time, and that you can choose to either spin the barrel at random, or not, before pulling the trigger again. Spinning the barrel will position the barrel in a random position.

Assuming you'd like to live, should you spin the barrel or not before pulling the trigger again?

People are waiting in line to board a 100-seat aeroplane. Steve is the first person in the line. He gets on the plane but suddenly can't remember what his seat number is, so he picks a seat at random. After that, each person who gets on the plane sits in their assigned seat if it's available, otherwise, they will choose an open seat at random to sit in. The flight is full and you are last in line. What is the probability that you get to sit in your assigned seat?

You stand in front of two doors. A guard stands next to each door. You know the following things: one path leads to paradise, the other leads to death. You cannot distinguish between the two doors. You also know that one of the two guards always tells the truth and the other always lies. You have permission to ask one guard one question to discover which door leads to paradise. What one question would you ask to guarantee you enter the door to paradise?

Find a 9-digit number, which you will gradually round off starting with units, then tenth, hundred etc., until you get to the last numeral, which you do not round off. The rounding alternates (up, down, up ...). After rounding off 8 times, the final number is 500000000. The original number is commensurable by 6 and 7, all the numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and after rounding four times the sum of the not-rounded numerals equals 24.

I was speeding and ran through a stop sign, yet two traffic officers who were there do nothing about it.

why?

Suppose you are a girl candidate and sitting in an interview. Suddenly the interviewer asks you, 'What if one morning you wake up and find out that you are pregnant?

How will you reply to such a question?