Alphaquest chapter 5: The battle of the gods

[Kieran Child]

The final stretch of your rather unconventionally word-based quest.

A set of 4 puzzles so hard Friedrich Mohs used to pretend they didn't exist.

1) taking the symbols for the back row of a chess board, we see the word RNBQKBNR. Rename the pieces so that the symbols create a valid word. (3 ways)
2) which 7 letter word has the property that you can change any of its letters to form another word?
3) which 25 letter word can be spelled using the element symbols of the periodic table?

Upon completing the above three challenges, a strange creature flies down to you and, while clearly impressed by your ability at word games, seems somewhat scared by the power this ability might grant you. He offers you the final challenge in the form of a two player word game. But first must explain the rules. "The rules are easy." he utters. "even Jon Corby could pick them up. What happens is one of us says a letter. Then the other person adds a letter to the front of it, the first person adds a third letter and so on. There must always be a valid word we could be heading towards, so if I say F, you cannot say Z because no word ends in ZF. The first person to make a valid word longer than 3 letters loses."
"OK, so what's the challenge?" you ask unpleasantly.

4) Do you want to go first or second?

[Charlie Reams]

#4 is pretty impossible to solve without a computer program, although anyone who reads the XKCD blog will know the answer.

[Kieran Child]

it isn't completely impossible without a computer, because I know of one person who solved it without a computer (well, without using a computer program designed to solve it)

Was intended to be the hardest of the 4, but if the answer is on your friends blog, please would anyone who has read that blog not answer? thanks

[Charlie Reams]

I actually wrote "pretty impossible" just to annoy Rosemary Roberts, I'm sure it's doable although tedious and highly error-prone. Also lol at

your friends blog

[Kieran Child]

^You may need to think about it a bit more to find why some of those aren't legal.
Apart from despised which is quite good and I hadn't thought of that.

[Phil Reynolds]

1) taking the symbols for the back row of a chess board, we see the word RNBQKBNR. Rename the pieces so that the symbols create a valid word. (3 ways)

I've found four so far, and I'm sure there are more:
DESPISED
DEVOLVED
MARJORAM
REVOLVER

(My previous answer had some more but with non-unique symbols, e.g. DETECTED.)

[Phil Reynolds]

1) taking the symbols for the back row of a chess board, we see the word RNBQKBNR. Rename the pieces so that the symbols create a valid word. (3 ways)

I've found four so far, and I'm sure there are more:
DESPISED
DEVOLVED
MARJORAM
REVOLVER

After resorting to some computer-assistedness, it turns out that there are three more valid answers to this one in the ODE, but two of them are words I've never come across before and the third is a word I probably wouldn't have thought of.

[Jon Corby]

I don't understand the rules of the game in #4

[Lesley Hines]

Am I being really thick thinking first to #4? I guess I've got a 50/50 chance... Makes sense to my simple mind

This is at least my logic (e.g.):
~Me first: N
You: AN
Me: PAN
You: SPAN
:. you lose as you've just made a 4 letter word.

No?

[Charlie Reams]

Am I being really thick thinking first to #4? I guess I've got a 50/50 chance... Makes sense to my simple mind

This is at least my logic (e.g.):
~Me first: N
You: AN
Me: PAN
You: SPAN
:. you lose as you've just made a 4 letter word.

No?

Why would I pick SPAN when I could pick another letter?

[Phil Reynolds]

Am I being really thick thinking first to #4? I guess I've got a 50/50 chance... Makes sense to my simple mind

This is at least my logic (e.g.):
~Me first: N
You: AN
Me: PAN
You: SPAN
:. you lose as you've just made a 4 letter word.

No?

Why would I pick SPAN when I could pick another letter?

...e.g. APAN which then forces your opponent to play JAPAN and you win.

[Lesley Hines]

Am I being really thick thinking first to #4? I guess I've got a 50/50 chance... Makes sense to my simple mind

This is at least my logic (e.g.):
~Me first: N
You: AN
Me: PAN
You: SPAN
:. you lose as you've just made a 4 letter word.

No?

Why would I pick SPAN when I could pick another letter?

...e.g. APAN which then forces your opponent to play JAPAN and you win.

Doh! Geddit Still first, then. But only for this example, and only if I'm not playing Phil or Charlie