It's numerical puzzle time, and I have a great fondness for the numerical grids. The first Listener I ever solved, hanging proudly on the door opposite me was 3840, Telling Fibs. This one appealed to me straight out, it sounded like mostly a logic puzzle, and then a game at the end to figure out which horses came first, second and third.
The odds system too a few reads to get into my head, and I made a spreadsheet for it - you may be able to read my scribble on the top of the solution, but I figured out that the bets worked like this...
If A is the bet amount and B is the odds
A win bet pays A(B+1)
An each-way win pays A(1.25B+2)
An each-way place pays A(0.25B+1)
So I set up cells where I could type in the bet, the odds, and have the grid answers show up magically in front of me. Cheating? You betcha, but this is a horse race, and I'm on a hypodermic path to solving this thing.
Next logic step: the bets are all in increments of 5, so win bets all have to end with a 5 or a 0. When the last number of a win bet lands on the starting square of another answer, it has to end with 5 and the odds must be an even number. This almost gives me a starting-point straight away - 1 down has to end in 5 and the odds on Ciao have to be even, meaning 8 across has to be 510, 540 or 570 and the odds on Olio have to be 16, 17 or 18. We're off and running!
A bit of brute-forcing to find a few number possibilities followed - looking for either large bets with small payouts or small bets with large payouts told me a few more grid numbers - the first number in 6 across had to be 1 or 2 for an each-way place to make a 4-digit payout, and the odds on Lido have to be at least 44. I kept a running high/low on each horse and each grid entry, if you really want to see the workings of my inner mind, clicking the picture below will display it in gruesome detail.
The solving segment really was a lot of fun, it was like doing a sudoku, eliminating possibilities, and narrowing it down until finally building up grid entries. There was a lot of brute force (like trying to figure out Nemo's odds by fitting 1?2 into 12 across). Once I got a start, I think it was less than an hour to get to the completed grid.
And now to the denouement... I had all the odds, I wrote the payouts for win and place on an each-way bet. And stared at it for a moment trying to figure out what was the best way to approach it. But Xeno was in the back of my mind, and the prospect of the race being a FIX was too good to resist. Filo pays 600, Iago pays 463, Xeno pays 138 and we end up making a profit of one shiny penny (don't spend it at once).
The grid is a masterpiece - the rounding up thing must have made it a real piece of work to put together. I was excited about this puzzle, because as soon as I read the preamble I had a plan of attack and confidence that I could get this out, there'd be no guesswork, everything is logical. The ending was fun, and the best thing of all - my streak is a staggering 3 (I have never solved more than one in a row), and I have edged to the front - George by a nose.
Tally: George 5, Listener 3
Edit: After posting this, I took a look at the solution on the Times site and we differ in two spots. 1D should be 125, that's a misprint of mine, I had the correct odds for Ciao. Sloppy... I have 1023 for 10 across and 153 for 7 down, another sloppy misprint. Always check your grid...
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