A puzzle by A. Savin, from the July-August 1996 issue of Quantum:
A mother, her brother, her daughter, and her son take part in a family chess tournament. Two of the four are twins. At the end of the tournament, the winner and the “loser” (the player in last place) are found to be the same age, and the winner is the opposite gender to the loser’s twin. Who won the tournament?
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The twins must be either the mother and her brother or the son and daughter. Either way, they are of opposite genders. This means that the winner and the loser are of the same gender. These two can’t be the mother and daughter, because they must be the same age. That means they’re the son and brother. The son can’t be the winner, because that would require that the brother’s twin (the mother) be the same age as the son. So the only possibility is that the brother won the tournament.
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