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Puzzle ZBIL 



??

During the recent BrainBashers Football Competition, 5 teams were competing.

Each team played each other just once, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss.

However, the rain damaged the final scoresheet, and this is all that could be read of the final points after all of the matches:
Rugby       6
Grimsby     5
Hereford    4
Lichfield   2
Reading    {?}

Can you work out how many points Reading ended the season with?

Puzzle Copyright © Kevin Stone

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Answer
3.

Reasoning
There were 5 teams in the league, and every team played every other, so there were a total of 10 games played:
   Rugby     vs  Grimsby
   Rugby     vs  Hereford
   Rugby     vs  Lichfield
   Rugby     vs  Reading
   Grimsby   vs  Hereford
   Grimsby   vs  Lichfield
   Grimsby   vs  Reading
   Hereford  vs  Lichfield
   Hereford  vs  Reading
   Lichfield vs  Reading

We know that 2 points were allocated for each game played. Which means that there were a total of 20 points over the 10 games.

Since the given results add to 17, the remaining 3 points belong to Reading.

 

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