Not sure if this is a riddle, but it's killing me!!

Trick? It sounds more like a con to me.
Also, what is the intent? To entertain, win bets or gain financially in some way?

purely to entertain. there is no benefit whatsoever. these are my sons youth pastors. as far as he tells me, the only thing they've said is they'll give $20 to anyone who can stump them. so far, they haven't lost!

using the first letter of each story-city they might be spelling out the city they want.

just a guess, try picking a city that starts with a unique or out of the ordinary letter.

If it is purely to entertain then it sounds like a game as long as they keep their word as far as the $20 is concerned.

If I understand the question correctly, all communication is done in code.

As for example:

Objects freely chosen by audience members, and the mentalist is really blindfolded, the assistant is able to communicate the identity of the objects through the use of a clever secret code, so slyly communicated that the audience never suspects its existence.

The code is simply this -- once an object is delivered into the assistant's hands, the assistant speaks to the mentalist using words that spell out the type of item.

For example, if the item is a pen, the assistant might say, "I have an object here, Please Examine Now." The mentalist, remembering the first letters of the coded part of the message, would realize that the item was a pen. Then the assistant says, "Please tell me the color, Besides Listing Another Common Kind." The pen is black!

Speaking in this way is fairly easy, with a little practice, as is understanding the code. Try it yourself. Imagine that your assistant says, "I have an object here, What A Lovely Little Expensive Treasure! :wink:

Wallet
Is it empty?

lol. true.

the puzzling thing is, they don't strike me as the type of guys to be able to remember a complex code. and they spit out the answers so quick, i don't know.

Whenever we would ask them how they did it, all the said was if we want to figure it out, asking them cities with bigger populations would make it easier for us to guess the method.

Now i'm thinking, there's no way these two guys remember exact populations to major cities. no way. so, are they just trying to throw us off?

I'm thinking of giving them a list of thirty cities and have them guess them one after another and write down the itineraries. then, lay them out and find the common thread.

i had really hoped someone had heard of this type of trick. any ideas where else i could post/look for answers?

EDIT: In reference to tryagain, I thought about that. but in some cases the cities in the itinerary did not have any common letters with the city to be guessed. my brother thought maybe the cities that didn't match, referenced letters in the corresponding state.

Most definitely.



Perhaps not, but they must know geography very well. If the one gives the other a clue like "I started at A and went to B" this forms a vector which could be used to mentally point to a different location. Or they could set it up that the direction is some arbitrary degree offset from that direction.

Or, they could have memorized some mapping between geographic locations...or they could be using some combination of important letters between different words as Tryagain suggested.

It's impossible to determine what method they are using since there are SO MANY methods that work!

i talked to a buddy of mine that works in the office with these two guys. he says that they went into their office and two hours later said they had a new game. these guys are farely smart but not the most brilliant. I highly doubt they could learn something this complex in two hours. it must be a simple answer.

obviously 'Phoenix'!

To have any hope, we'll need at least one complete example.

In the meantime, here's one I made up that might match their method:

I started in Walla Walla and stayed four nights. Then I spent two nights in Jackson Hole. From there, I went to Salt Lake City, where I spent only one night. Next, I traveled to Lincoln and spent three nights there. It was a short hop to a four night stay in Kansas City. Memphis was the next stop, but I spent only one night there. Finally, I spent a week in Tuscaloosa before heading home.

What city am I conveying?

After a quick scan down the list of the top 50 cities, I can only see:

Philadelphia
Phoenix

Miami
Minneapolis

Start with the same two letters, but NONE end with the same. Therefore, a three letter code could ID each and every city, or just about anything else for that matter - no need to spell out the whole word.


Mark, you have a career in showbiz beckoning.

Huh?