Binary sequencing
Suppose that Marla, John and Bob want to play poker. Bob decided that if both Marla and John play a round, then he would simply watch and then he will play the next one. Each player will take a break for the next round after having played one. If only Marla or only John plays, then Bob will sit back until both had played. Each player can play poker by her or himself or with a dealer. The tournament lasted 4 rounds and both Marla and John played the first one. How many rounds did Bob played?
The answer is 2.
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1 solution
We can represent a player playing a round with the number 1 and a player taking a break with the number 0. Here's a table of what happened after the 4 rounds (a 0 means that the person did not played) :
This is the same thing as adding 1 0 1 0 2 + 1 0 1 2 .