Someone thinks of a famous person and tells player 1, but not player 2.

magic/trip.game New

New entry, edited from material collected for the archive and not yet in a released version.

Problem

Someone thinks of a famous person and tells player 1, but not player 2.
Player 1 then describes a mythical trip, and player 2 names the person.
For General Norman Schwarzkopf [Editor: "Schwartzkoff" in the original]
the trip might be: "We're going to Dallas for two days; then on to San
Antonio for two more days.  Then we'll go to Rio and Toledo.  Then we're
just going to travel around a little bit.  Then on to San Diego and
Hawaii for three days.  We liked it so much, we stayed two more days.
Then on to London.  Finally we'll finish up the trip back in Dallas."
How does player 2 know?
[ Editor: problem statement reconstructed from the postings. ]

Show solution

[ Editor: Howard Pinsley <head@dorsai.dorsai.org> described this game,
  played with a confederate, and later added to the trip above (after
  the final Dallas): ]

"Then we travelled around a little bit.  We went to Hawaii for two days
then Rio for four more days."

[ Editor: he also gave a second example, for Muhammed Ali: ]

Player 1: "O.K.  We're going to go on a trip.  I hope your bags are
packed.  We're going to go to Toledo and then to Hawaii for two days.
After that we'll just travel around a little bit.  Then on to Georgia,
and then to Rio for two days.  We liked it so much we stayed one more
day.  Then back to Toledo for two days, and then we're going to San
Diego and finally Toronto."

Player 2: "Is it Muhammed Ali?"

All are amazed.

-- Howard Pinsley

Is it because he's THE GREATEST!

-- Steve Meek <smeek@jungle.bt.co.uk>

[ Editor: the code, as the examples show: each place gives its initial
  letter, a number of days gives a vowel (one day A, two E, three I,
  four O, five U), and "travel around a little bit" separates words.
  The second example reads T, H-E / G, R-E-A, T-E, S, T = THE GREATEST;
  the first reads D-E, S-E, R, T / S, H-I-E, L, D = DESERT SHIELD, and
  with Pinsley's addition, DESERT SHIELD HERO. ]