THESE ARE THE FORMS THE PARTICIPANTS FILLED OUT.  THANKS EVERYONE!
	I hope they give you a final lookback at the various approaches -
	they vary somewhat, but all appear to tackle the brute force issue.
	Even after a few months, I can't help but "feel" there must be some
	elusive magic solution somewhere ... I guess that's what helps make
	for a good problem!  Thank you all for participating, and watch for
	the NEXT POTM in about a month!

	=Fred


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 1.  branch_and_hang  <================

1. branch_and_hang        112        369    1797900	Jim Roche

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
branch_and_hang   22/101       26/97       *22/48       *18/27*       24/96    

   =================
   branch_and_hang was submitted by Jim Roche at roche@research.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID branch_and_hang DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?  Used obvious facts
   that FF = CC = Identity and that F commutes with C and S to allow
   search to depth D in time that grew like 1.618^D.  Used meet-in-the-
   middle attack, going forward from the initial deck and backward from
   the desired unmixed deck, to find sequences of moves that put the
   first 3 cards (and thus the last 3 cards, as well, by symmetry
   property) in the correct position.  This technique finds all  
   move sequences of length less than 50 or so that restore the deck
   perfectly.  For other decks,  the technique essentially gives
   3 "free" pairs of matches beyond what is yielded by simple forward
   search.  Typically this gives 9 or 10 pairs of matches in all.
         After spending half of the allowed time on the meet-in-the
   middle search described above, the program took the best solution 
   and fed it back in as if it were the starting deck.  This 
   typically picked another 2 pairs of matches or so.
         NOTE to Fred: The more advanced program that Allan Wilks and
   I are debugging uses the meet-in-the-middle attack above as a front
   end to get 9 or 10 pairs of matches within 5 minutes.  In Stage 2,
   a set of precomputed operators (stored in packed format) is used to 
   "fix" the cards that
   are still out of position.  A typical iteration of Stage 2 takes
   about 150 moves and yields another 2 pairs of matches or so.  We
   therefore expect that this program will typically yield about
   30 matches (i.e., 15 pairs of matches).

>>> [Note back to Jim:  POTMs have been known to be addictive.  In fact,
>>>   there are several folks at the Betty Ford clinic still working on
>>>   trying to solve the ODOMETER problem from 2 years ago.  Beware!!!]
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:
   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.: See comments in source code
   for reference to paper that addresses essentially this problem.
   (The information in the paper doesn't really help much in 
   developing a practical algorithm, but it has some very 
   interesting results.)
   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  I'm just wrapping up a
   postdoc in the Mathematical Sciences Research Center at Murray Hill.
   My background is in information theory and related areas.
   Hobbies include volleyball, football, softball, and juggling.
   


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 2.  fulldeck  <================

2. fulldeck               108        894    1743410	Bob Hall

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
fulldeck          22/284       24/245      *22/168      *18/35        22/162   

   =================
   fulldeck was submitted by Bob Hall at hall@research.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID fulldeck DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

The key idea behind fulldeck is that instead of searching in a space of
Shuffles and Cuts, which essentially randomly permute the cards, why not
(1) first find a S/C sequence that reaches a state in which some (e.g. 6)
of the cards are in the right position, then (2) search in a space of operators
each of which guarantees not to foul up those (e.g. 6) positions.
(I used positions (not 0), 1,2,3, n-4, n-3, and n-2, but that was arbitrary.)
This way each step in the search has to generate a position scoring at least
6, and maybe more.  Computationally, you can think of it like a thermonuclear
bomb: there is an initial phase that generates the first 6-scoring position(s)
as well as the operators (S/C sequences that preserve those positions)
that preserve them.  THen, Phase-II kicks in and searches in that
space, where each step has enhanced search power.

If the high-scoring sequences are randomly distributed in each space (as they
seem to be), then if you search in a space guaranteed to score 6 no matter
what you do, you might expect to see scores about 6 better than a program
that searches in the raw S/C space itself.  (This is, in fact, close to what
I measured (5.6) when I ran my program against earlier S/C searchers on 15
randomly generated test cases of various sizes.)  Note that even though
each step in the Phase-II space is a longish sequence of S/Cs, we can
apply it directly (by looking at it as a permutation and doing the pointwise
mapping), instead of executing the Ss and Cs each time we apply it.  This
saves a great deal of time.

This approach leads to longer solution sequences, since each step in the
Phase-II space is typically a 10 to 30 long S/C sequence.  I figured the
very robust improvement of an average of 6 points was worth losing a few
tiebreakers.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

- One wants to do breadth-first search (to find short sequences) but BFS is
  costly in space.  You can get essentially the same effect and virtually
  the same performance using very little space by using
  Iterative-Deepening Depth-first Search.  Essentially, use depth first search,
  but instead of evaluating every intermediate position, only evaluate those
  at the leaves, and do it iteratively: first to level 1, then to level 2, 
  etc.  The duplicated work of regenerating all previous levels to get to the
  leaves of the next level is actually insignificant because of the high
  branching factor of the search space.

- Instead of frequently checking the time yourself, your program can schedule
  an interrupt timer in Unix to wake up the program after ten minutes
  and pick the current best solution, dump it out, and exit.  This saves
  the computational effort involved in doing frequent system calls to check
  the time, as well as guarantees using up as close as possible to the
  whole ten minutes.  (see 'man setitimer').
   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:

- Flips (ie reversals) commute with both Shuffles and Cuts, so you don't have
  to consider S/C/F sequences, instead you can just evaluate each S/C result
  and the F of that without missing any sequences.

- For all n, shuffling over and over generates the identity after a 
  rather short time.  (For many n, half of that number of shuffles generates
  the flip of the identity, in fact.)  Thus, the S/C space is a k-way
  branching tree where k is either the order of the shuffle (or the semi-order
  when k/2 shuffles reverse the sequence).

- Curiously, S/C/Fs maintain the property that (if we number the cards from
  0 to n-1) card i plus card (n-1-i) is always equal to n-1.  This allows
  us to represent permutations in half the space, since one can always compute
  the paired card for any card in position < n/2.

- Some spaces are tiny, and some are huge so it seems worthwhile to separate
  the cases.  Tiny spaces can be searched exhaustively using ID-DFS, while
  big ones need other techniques.  The tiny spaces I know about:
  S(2)=2, S(4)=8, S(6)=48, S(8)=24, S(10)=1920, S(12)=7680, S(14)=, S(16)=64, S(32)=160, and S(64)=384
  In general, S(2^k) = k*(2^k), seems to be true, but I'm not sure why.
   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

- My nuclear-fusion technique can obviously be extended recursively, but the
  sequences grow long quickly.  I think (IMHO) you should have either removed
  or relaxed the length restriction on answers.

- This was a good contest.  Thanks for running it, Fred!
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
   
I am a researcher in 11384, working in the areas of program profiling,
software engineering and artificial intelligence, and software agents.
I also play first base and some outfield if necessary.

========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 3.  motorhoyle  <================

3. motorhoyle             102        232    1117670	=Vincent Goffin

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
motorhoyle        20/54        20/49       *22/47*      *18/27*       22/55    

   =================
   motorhoyle was submitted by =Vincent Goffin at vjg@mozart.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID motorhoyle DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?
   I despaired of finding anything clever to do and cast my lot with
   a brute force approach.  In the absence of ANY clue, I concluded
   it would be just as productive to examine all possible moves
   up to whatever length the hardware and time constraints would allow.
   That means moves up to length 55, maybe a bit more.
   If the solution is shorter than that, motorhoyle will find it.
   If the solution is longer (and most problems for most deck sizes
   are much longer) motorhoyle might be able to unscramble 20
   cards.  It will usually NOT find the best solution for the length
   of moves examined -- that search is very expensive and could
   lead to missing an exact solution, and an exact solution usually
   has a bigger pay-off.
   Special? motorhoyle knocked off after 6 mins instead of the allowed 10:
   In Solaris 5.2 CLK_TCK is in limits.h... I guess it's not there in 5.3!
   (It probably wouldn't have affected the outcome, anyway).

   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:
   I worked with N cards instead of 2*N.
   The hash function contains a parameter that allows more approximate
   solutions to be found than would otherwise be possible.

   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
   I tried various things but there was always some step that required
   a brute force solution, so I gave up.

   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
   The problem is interesting -- I wonder if there is a really clever
   way of doing this kind of thing...

   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
   I port and develop version control software -- but the POTM is more fun!


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 4.  buffalo  <================

4. buffalo                 86        172    1620690	Dennis Sanger

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
buffalo           16/28        14/24       *22/47*      *18/47        16/26    

=================
buffalo was submitted by Dennis Sanger at drs@bighorn.dr.att.com
=================
MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.: Basic stuff: Flipping more than once
is superfluous, and that flip can occur anywhere in the string of moves,
so I flip (if necessary) at the very end for simplicity. Two cuts in a row
negate each other. More interesting: any string of moves can be viewed as
one meta-move, and these meta-moves can be combined arbitrarily, allowing,
for example, the string CSCSSSSCSCSSSS to be performed as two CSCSSSS moves
rather than fourteen cuts and shuffles. Also fun: only half the deck needs
to be stored, since cut, shuffle, and flip don't affect symmetry, i.e. for a
52-card deck, A is always opposite z, B is always opposite y, etc.

WHAT DID buffalo DO THAT WAS SPECIAL? I dunno if it's special, but my approach
was to build a library of unique meta-moves of length up to 24, then for each
length 24 meta-move I search (via a hash table) the dictionary for the
meta-move that will combine with that move to unshuffle the deck. Since
two of the five problems were solvable within 48 moves, this worked out
nicely. I theorized that I would find the shortest possible solution this way,
and never found a counter-example until the fourth final problem... I never
figured out how to pull the closest match out of the dictionary, so if the
solution wasn't within 48 moves, I didn't have a very good score. To improve
the score, I use the remaining time to construct (but not store) meta-moves
of increasing size: concatenate the length 24 moves to all the length 1 moves,
then to the length 2 moves, etc., looking for high scorers until time runs out.
This second phase usually only reaches a depth of about 30.

TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF: If I had any of these...

ANY OTHER COMMENTS? A frustrating POTM, since I never came up with any
techniques that I would characterize as clever. Just plain brute force...

WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN? I live for fun.



========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 5.  serpico  <================

5. serpico                 84        717     205480	Lew Mammel

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
serpico            0/204       22/183      *22/90       *18/97        22/143   

   =================
   serpico was submitted by Lew Mammel at lew@uscbu.ih.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID serpico DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

Two things:

1) It stored two sets of operations, ( to be thought of
as the head and tail of a snake ) together in a binary
tree such that if any head matched any tail a solution was
found. This meant that  with 2N operations in the tree, it effectively
checked N possible matches each time an operation was added.

To make the matches, I stored the inverse permutation of
the heads. If U is the given unknown, UA is a head and B is
a tail, then UAB = I if and only if inv(UA) = B .

My first submission stayed at the top of the leader
board for 2 weeks on the strength of this method.

2) It post-processed the best match, trying to improve it, as described
below.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

I wonder how many noticed that the group factored. This at least
could be used to reduce storage, and I used it for my "improvement"
scheme, but it didn't really seem to be the magic bullet I was
hoping for.


   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
   
If you write the decks as (e.g.) ABCDEedcba instead of ABCDEabcde
you'll see right away that every letter stays paired with its
complement through all operations. Therefore the first half determines
the second half by order inversion and case complement.
This makes it obvious why the flip commutes with the cut and shuffle -
it is equivalent to taking the case complements, which is just a
relabelling.

Operations which preserve order, altering only case, form an
invariant subgroup. That is, if A is such an operation, and
G is any operation with G' its inverse, then G'AG is also
an order preserving operation. These form a kernel of a quotient
group. If you can find one of these its relatively easy to apply
other kernel elements to it to get a complete answer. It won't
be optimal length, though. In my method, I tried to create kernel
elements and then tried to improve my best answer by splicing it
into the sequence in all possible ways. e.g. ACSS, CASS, CSAS,
CSSA. ( This lead to trouble, though - I dropped a flip somewhere )

Regarding the first half as a representation of the quotient group
( disregarding case ), it's interesting that the cut becomes a flip.
Also, CS leaves the first letter alone and is equivalent to a shuffle
on the next smaller size deck. If you could generate the next smaller
cut algorithmically, you would have a recursive method of solving
the problem.

There is a lot of theory on "free groups", which are formal
sequences of operations just as we are dealing with. There is
in fact a formal method for obtaining an answer to our problem,
( Shcreier ordering, etc. ) but it defines new operations
recursively in terms of others, and ends up creating really
long sequences - tens of thousands, I think.  I think it might
take a lot of time as well. I didn't really work
this all out, obviously. 

There is other theory that can be applied, particulary conjugacy
classes. I messed around a lot with these, ( serpico was supposed
to stand for SERPIntine COnjugates )  but it was hard to keep
length under control.  The length, that is, of the operation sequence,
but also the length of the program! I really wonder how far you could
go with the application of theory. Maybe some others did more.

   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

Fred ran a great contest. I especially appreciate his emphasis on
participation. As it turned out, I dropped a flip in one of the
final problems and dropped out of the running. I took it kind of
hard when I tried it myself, so I appreciated it when Fred took
note of it when he reported the results to me. Oh well!
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
   
I work on 5ESS switch data base software for a living.
For fun? this and that - reading, golf, games.


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 6.  a.cut.above  <================

6. a.cut.above             84        788    2563430	Fred Hicinbothem

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
a.cut.above        8/9         20/345      *22/172      *18/35        16/227   

   =================
   a.cut.above was submitted by Fred Hicinbothem at fah@potm.ffast.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID a.cut.above DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?
Like everyone else, figured out the minimum shuffles for the deck
size, forgot about more than a single flip. double cuts, etc.
1) For the deck size, I found the N unique move combinations that
	could be applied at any step.  For example, since a deck of
	34 cards is returned to original state in 12 shuffles, at
	each "step" I would try only the following operations:
	C, CS, CSS, CSSS, .... CSSSSSSSSSSS (cut and 11 shuffles).
2) Each deck from the previous step had these operations applied.  I
	started the process with an F deck, an S deck, and a noop deck.
	(so at step 2 of a 34 card problem I would have 3x12 decks with
	move sequences ranging in length from 2 to 13).  At the next step
	I'd have about 3x12^2, then 3x12^3, etc. decks to keep track of.
3) This was just a different way to search the move space - at my "step 10"
	of a 34 card deck for example, I have "move strings" ranging from
	the short CSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCSCS to something over 120 moves long, each
	one would have the same number of "cuts" in it though.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

4) Since I'm not much of a programmer (don't know how to use malloc just yet!)
	I couldn't keep very many decks around - so after every one of my
	"steps", I examined all the decks and picked out 200 (or so) to keep.
	The rest I threw away.  Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to come up with
	a scoring mechanism that would somehow get me "closer" to a solution.
	I tried many, and eventually settled on:
5) I measured the "distance" between consecutive letters (A->B, B->C, etc.) 
	in the deck I had, made a histogram of all the distances between 
	consecutive letters.  I figured the ideal solution would have a 
	distance of "zero" between consecutive letters, and a really messed
	up deck would have distances all over the place.  So my measure was
	the number of bins that had entries - lowest numbers are saved at 
	each level.  (hey - I tried a bunch of 'em, this one was the last!)
6) So, bottom line - since I only operated on 200 decks or so at each "step" -
	I was able to go about 100 or so "steps" deep - examining move strings
	from 200 to a couple of thousand.  BUT NOT ALL OF THEM!
   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:

Used the sequence mailer to tackle some of the theory and get ideas!
   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

Fred runs a great contest.  He is superior in every way to the average
human being.  His feet rarely are damp after walking on water.
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
   
Systems Engineering for the Fast Feature Adjunct Services Technology (FFAST)
department in West Long Branch NJ.  (System's Engineers are the ones who are
not good enough at any one thing to earn a living at it.)
For Fun?  Why POTMs of course - is there another raison d'etre????  My
motivation is to try and bring back some of the fun that seemed to be a
whole lot more prevalent at the Labs 25 years ago ... (yeah - I'm an old guy).

========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 7.  bigbrute  <================

7. bigbrute                82        135    2550430	Kevin Ahrens

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
bigbrute          16/28        16/34        16/20       *18/27*       16/26    

   =================
   bigbrute was submitted by Kevin Ahrens at kea@ih4sm.ih.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID bigbrute DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

[ed note: bigbrute and mutator are actually both the work of Greg Youngdahl,
	  a perfectly legal way to use a friend to help out! ]

	Bigbrute works from the mutator code and adds what I call a
"shuffle look ahead" algorithm.  For each candidate string generated by
mutator, the shuffle look ahead adds shuffle operations one at a time
(up to the maximum number of shuffles that would restore the deck to its
previous order - including looking back at the mutator operations to see
how many consecutive shuffles had been performed to yield the current deck)
and checks them to see if they produce a better answer than has been seen
so far (both in properly located cards and number of operations).  While
this reduces the total number of variations that the mutator algorithm can
produce it does produce a greater operation length (shuffles only) and thus
can possibly find more cards in place (at the expense of not always finding
the shortest sequence of operations that produce that number of properly
located cards).  Mutator will always report the shortest number of
operations that produce the number of in place cards that it discovers.
   
   OTHER SECTIONS:

	See discussion for mutator.
   

========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 8.  curlyshuffle  <================

8. curlyshuffle            80        124    1436870	=Neil Weinstock

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
curlyshuffle      16/27        14/24        16/20       *18/27*       16/26    

>   =================
>   curlyshuffle was submitted by =Neil Weinstock at nsw@garage.att.com
>   =================
>   WHAT DID curlyshuffle DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

Very little, which is why it performs rather poorly.  The approach
was a very basic breadth-first search of the ridiculously large solution
space.  The version submitted was my first go at it; I could have improved
it considerably but not to the extent that it could have competed effectively.
I was missing either a heuristic that would have helped me home in on the
solution faster, or a faster way of scoring a partial solution.  Oh well.

>   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

None, most likely (at least not in the submitted version.)

>   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:

Ditto.

>   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

Nope.

>   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  

I'm a hardware designer working on Datakit II and BNS-2000.  I'm into
keyboards, volleyball, and banging my head against the wall working on
programming competitions.


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 9.  mutator  <================

9. mutator                 80        124    2452500	Greg Youngdahl

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
mutator           16/27        14/24        16/20       *18/27*       16/26    

   =================
   mutator was submitted by Greg Youngdahl at greg@ihlpm.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID mutator DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

	Mutator is basically a brute force algorithm that could recognize
certain conditions (such as two consecutive cuts or a sequence of shuffles
that would put the deck back the way it was - dependent on deck size) and
quickly bypass any operation sets that included those conditions.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

	Once I decided that I could put the Flip operation in my analysis
routine (see below) I was left manipulating strings of Cuts and Shuffles.
I then decided to use integers to represent operation strings (rather than
the character arrays I had been using) where a 0 bit represented a Shuffle
and a 1 bit represented a Cut.  "Incrementing" to the next operation set
became an actual ++ operation (extended over a pair of longs to provide for
a possible 64 operation set - I found I couldn't get much past 33 operations
anyway in the 10 minutes allowed).  Then I could slide bit masks over these
to check for pairs of consecutive Cuts or strings of Shuffles that exceeded
the limit for the deck size, and set all bits below the masks to 1 so that
the next increment would cause the offending bits to get altered (since the
pair of Cuts or string of Shuffles resulted in no change to the deck at that
point, there would already have been an analysis of the shorter operation
string that would result from eliminating the pair of Cuts or string of
Shuffles).  This technique effectively trippled the number of operation
strings I was able to analyze, but obviously there were more tricks that I
didn't pick up on as evidenced by the leaders in the system test decks.
   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:

	Well, I don't have a mathematical proof of this, but aside from the
observation that two consecutive Cuts or Flips result in the deck being back
the way it was, I came to the realization that a pair of Flips would cancel
each other out no matter where they occured in the order of operations.  With
that information I was able to imbed a Flip test in my routine for analyzing
a prospective solution (knowing that if a flip were necessary for the
solution it could be done as the last operation, and that no more than one
Flip would ever be necessary), and concentrate on testing combinations of
Shuffles and Cuts.
   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

	Can't wait to see the winning entires approaches!
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

	Development (and at the moment current engineering) of Fault
Recovery software for the 1B processors (which are replacing the 1A
processors that control the 4ESSs in the AT&T long distance network).

   FOR FUN?

	Playing with my 5 yr. old son, playing guitar, piano, synthesizers,
bicycle riding, cross country skiing, slot car racing, kite flying,
woodworking, writing software for my PC to control my synths, tinkering with
microcontrollers and embedded processors and interfacing them to things
around the house.  The first item and the next several often combine well,
the last two (software writing, and tinkering) tend to work better after
item 1 goes to bed ;-)

========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10.  scarne  <================

10. scarne                  80        230    2690980	David Wood

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
scarne            14/23        14/24        18/61       *18/61        16/61    

=================
scarne was submitted by David Wood at dww@mrspock.att.com
=================
WHAT DID scarne DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?
	Used breath first search, saving only current deck and path.
	This allowed depth of 23-24 with ~20Meg of memory (300K decks).

	Then it transistioned to depth first search.

	Tracked the number of consecutive shuffles and used a max
	consecutive shuffles table to cut off dead branchs.

	Nothing really special.

TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

	A better trick, which I didn't get a chance to submit, is
	to track a single card.  This can be done using translation
	vectors allowing Shuffle, Cut, Flip to be done in a few
	machine instructions (very fast!).  This coupled with
	using a 4byte integer to hold the path (0-cut, 1-shuffle)
	(don't need to store flips since you can try a flip and
	if it doesn't work, drop it and keep going) you can do
	breath first search to a depth of 31 (~2 million decks).

	When the card you are tracking is in the right position,
	generate the actual deck using the path.  This is fine
	for breath first, but sucks for depth first since you
	miss out on partials.
	
   
MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
    
ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
    
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  Read and write Sci-Fi, read military
Software Process Reengineering		history
and Improvment


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  gillette  <================

10+ gillette                76        115     342180	Tim Tjarks

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
gillette          14/23        14/24        16/20        16/22        16/26    

   =================
   gillette was submitted by Tim Tjarks at tjarks@iesde.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID gillette DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

It was pretty much brute force.  The only thing that it did to limit the
generated tree of moves is to recognize that only one flip was needed in any
given solution (FS == SF, FC == CF, FF == ""), and to limit the number of
consecutive shuffles to one less than the number that would produce a Flip
or bring the deck back to original form.
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  

At work:  Toolsmith in the 5ESS Global Platform organization, primarily
          in call load generation.
At play:  I collect and index comic books, and coach my daughters' softball
          team.



========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  cardtrick  <================

10+ cardtrick               74        115     228770	Warren Montgomery

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
cardtrick         14/23        12/22        16/20       *18/27*       14/23    


	==== Sorry, no information on cardtrick is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  pfiulhfsetlufc  <================

10+ pfiulhfsetlufc          74        176    2942570	Keith Vollherbst

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
pfiulhfsetlufc    14/55        14/44        16/20       *18/35        12/22    


	==== Sorry, no information on pfiulhfsetlufc is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  deal  <================

10+ deal                    70        110     112170	Dave Lynch

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
deal              12/21        12/22        16/20       *18/27*       12/20    

   =================
   deal was submitted by Dave Lynch at dfl@esun.ho.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID deal DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?
	Not much.  Built a pair of search trees rooted at the starting and
	ending positions in hopes of meeting in the middle.  Not very
	effective for long shuffle sequences.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:
   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
	Flips are commutative.
	Two flips = Two cuts = Identity.
	A series of k consecutive shuffles will produce an Identity
		(where k depends on the deck size).
   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
	Thanks, Fred!!!
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
	Develop data network design software.  Anything else.


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  transmogrifier  <================

10+ transmogrifier          66        167      98350	Cliff Martin

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
transmogrifier    12/37        12/47        16/32        14/13        12/38    


	==== Sorry, no information on transmogrifier is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  Wayfinder  <================

10+ Wayfinder               60        106    2819720	David Loewenstern

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
Wayfinder         12/21        10/21        10/21        16/22        12/21    


	==== Sorry, no information on Wayfinder is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  shuffle_this  <================

10+ shuffle_this            54         86    2890140	Alfredo Machuca

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
shuffle_this      10/17        10/17        10/18        14/17        10/17    


	==== Sorry, no information on shuffle_this is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  cardshark  <================

10+ cardshark               52        140    2531870	Don Shugard

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
cardshark         16/32         2/28        14/23       *18/31         2/26    

	   =================
	   cardshark was submitted by Don Shugard at dds@boole.l1135.att.com
				soon to be dds@boole.info.att.com
	   =================
	   WHAT DID cardshark DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?

I recognized that the flip can always be done at the end of a series
of moves therefore the problem becomes a binary problem of cuts and 
shuffles. Since the max number of cuts to get back to the original
deck is 2 only 1 cut before a shuffle is allowed. I computed the maximum
shuffles to get either to a flipped deck or the original deck.
Based on this number, generate a list of possible 16 bit moves where a 0
is a cut and a 1 is a shuffle. I used this list to generate all possible
moves in a breadth first fashion. (10 minutes only gets me about 34 moves
deep). I couldn't come up with ways to efficiently prune the tree.

	   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:

 I used tables to perform shuffles, cuts and flips and calculated
transforms for the following.

	C
	SC
	SSC
	SSSC
	SSSSC
	>>>>>C where >>>> is the  max number of shuffles
	I Identity or unshuffled deck
	S
	SS
	SSS
	>>>>>

	this allowed me to calculate moves as a series of transfroms instead of 
each function (ie shuffle or cut );
	   
	   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
	Nope. Pure brute force
	   
	   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
	Wasted too much time pursueing remembering decks, moves and running out
of memory. Eventually hit on the transforms June 9, Wish I had more time 
to think about traversing them more efficiently. I only looked at solutions
that had the "A" in the correct place therefore missing some better intermediate
solutions.
	   
	   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING? 
			I am a VLSI designer both hardware and software

	 FOR FUN?   Fly model airplanes;

========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  ShuFliPi  <================

10+ ShuFliPi                 -          -          -	Gerald Williams

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
ShuFliPi           0/0          8/5          8/21         4/28         6/17    


	==== Sorry, no information on ShuFliPi is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  3cardmonte  <================

10+ 3cardmonte               -          -          -	Michael Chin

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
3cardmonte         0/0         12/127        6/69         0/0          6/83    


	==== Sorry, no information on 3cardmonte is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  lotpack  <================

10+ lotpack                  -          -          -	Bob Vanderwall

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
lotpack            0/0          0/32         0/0         18/27         0/0     

   =================
   lotpack was submitted by Bob Vanderwall at rlv@baseworx.cb.att.com
   =================
   WHAT DID lotpack DO THAT WAS SPECIAL?
   Breadth first search of the solution space.
   
   TRICKS THAT OTHERS MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF:
   Combinations of operations were eliminated. CF=FC SF=FS, FF=null
   hence, all F operations can be 'pushed' to the end and combined
   into zero or one F.  Also any CC operation is used to prune the 
   search tree since it is also a null operation.

   
   MATH THEORY, PROGRAMMING TRICKS, ETC.:
   Note that I did not have time to pursue.  for a given deck,
   there is also a sequence of some number of S operations which
   is NULL, as is SC and CS

   
   ANY OTHER COMMENTS?
   Neat little problem.  
   
   WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?  FOR FUN?  
    Living:   Software tester.
    Fun:      School, martial arts, POTM.



========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  jumble  <================

10+ jumble                   -          -          -	Subramani Ramachandran

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
jumble             0/0          0/0          0/0          0/0          0/0     


	==== Sorry, no information on jumble is available


========================================================================
========================================================================
============> 10+  KingAndI  <================

10+ KingAndI                 -          -          -	Clester Keaton

   Entry Name      ONE          TWO         THREE         FOUR         FIVE
                  52/250       46/150       22/455       18/125       36/160
   ==========      ===          ===         =====         ====         ====
KingAndI           0/0          0/0          0/0          0/0          0/0     


	==== Sorry, no information on KingAndI is available