Word Mastermind #1: So long to Cheech and Chong Mystery Cache

There is no cache at the listed coordinates. The cache is located on a Harvard conservation land within 2.5 miles of the listed coordinates.

The most scenic route follows the blue trail from parking that is Northeast of the cache. The Harvard Trails guidebook available from town hall is a handy reference. This cache may be difficult in the winter if there is more than 2 feet of snow on the ground.

This puzzle introduces one of our favorite mind games: Word Mastermind. You need only a pencil and paper and two players who love words and logic.

Word Mastermind
Object: Guess an opponent’s hidden five-letter word in the fewest number of turns.
Setup: Each player thinks of a five-letter word and writes it at the top of a piece of paper, folding the top of the page down to conceal it. This is their hidden word.
Play:

• Player A states any five-letter word as a guess at Player B’s hidden word.
• Player B determines the hits and announces a two-digit assessment. The first digit corresponds to the total number of shared letters that Player A's guess word has with their hidden word. The second digit identifies how many of those letters are also in the correct position. For example: if Player B’s word is CRYPT and Player A guessed TRAPS, the hit assessment would be 3-2. There are 3 shared letters (TRP) and two of them are in the correct position (R and P).
• Player B then makes a guess at Player A’s word, and Player A determines the hits and announces the two-digit assessment.
• Players must make accurate assessments and use acceptable words for all guesses and hidden words. A player who makes an inaccurate assessment forfeits the game. Acceptable words include those words allowed in Scrabble and the Scrabble Dictionary is the official reference for these puzzles.
• Play alternates back and forth until one Player guesses the exact word (a hit assessment of 5-5). The player who guesses their opponent’s word in the fewest turns wins.

This example game ended up in a tie since both players solved in the same number of guesses.

Caution: Word Mastermind is addicting and much more a battle of wits than it seems at first glance. The English language has plenty of five-letter words, so the possibilities are endless. Logical thinking plays an important role in this game.

To find the cache coordinates, you must first deduce both hidden words from the situation in the table below. This game is a fictitious, but brilliant battle between Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, two players who are much smarter than they seemed as a comedy duo. We miss their silly comedy routines.

Once you have solved for both player’s hidden words you can compute the coordinates as follows.

• Write down all of the letters from both player’s hidden words and alphabetize them into a list of 10 letters.
• Replace any duplicate letters with the next unused letters in the alphabet so that you still end up with 10 letters.
• Assign the digits 0-9 respectively to the final list of ten alphabetized letters.
• Example: In the example game above where the two hidden words were BLAST and SASSY, you would end up with these ten letters: AABLSSSSTY. The duplicate A would be replaced with the next unused letter (C) and the three duplicate Ss would be replaced with the next two unused letters (U, V and W) and your final list of 10 letters would be: ABCLSTUVWY. The digit assignments would then be as follows:

  A=0

  B=1

  C=2

  L=3

  S=4

  T=5

  U=6

  V=7

  W=8

  Y=9

You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.