| Gonna try my hand at explaining why Alaska is a guess. The first nine spots are almost entirely linear: A1>E1>A5>E5(a)>C1>A2 & E5(b)>A4>A3>D5. The A1 clue says A capitals are in Row 1. There are five A capitals so all those states MUST be up there; at this point the two remaining states are ME and MD, we just don't know which is where yet. The A2 clue says Canadian border states are in the second row. Let's assume that only land borders are considered. This gives us a total of ten states to work with. You can eliminate NH because it's already there, and you can eliminate ME because it must be in Row 1. So now you have eight possible states to fill four spots. At this point, any of those states can be in any of those spots, and almost all of those states can be in almost any other spot on the board. ALL WE KNOW about Alaska is that it's in Column C. This means that IF it is in Row 2, then it must be in C2. But there are seven other states vying for C2. There is nothing eliminating any of those seven from C2 (or anywhere else in that row), and nothing eliminating Alaska from the other spots in the C column. C2 *could* be Alaska, but it could also be WA, ID, MT, ND, MN, NY, and VT, and again that's only counting land borders. C2 *could* be Alaska, but so could C3, C4, and C5. Alaska at C2 is a guess. I propose replacing Arizona's clue (it's a dead end, as we already know CA by elimination of populous states) with "Only one state in Column C shares a land border with Canada." That won't fix ND but it will fix Alaska. |
Doubling Populations
Most Populous Cities (US)
Biggest Western US Cities
