RAY: Hi! We're back. You're listening to Car Talk with us, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, and we're here, of course, to talk about cars, car repair and the answer to last week's Puzzler, and here it is. I'll get right to it, because it's lengthy, and you know me.

TOM: Brevity...

RAY: Brevity is my middle name. You get a letter in the mail predicting the winner of a, like, the heavyweight championship match...

TOM: I remember this one.

RAY: A few weeks before the event. There is no other information, just that statement.

TOM: Mmm-hmm.

RAY: And you don't take it seriously, thinking it's a prank from a friend, I guess, and you find out, however, that the prediction is correct. Then you receive subsequent letters predicting a few days beforehand the winners of various contests or other events. The letters correctly predict the winners of, uh, the heavyweight championship match, the World Series, damn Yankees. How could you not predict that? The NBA finals, the presidential election, the world chess championship, the NCAA basketball finals and the Rose Bowl. Pretty good, hunh?

TOM: Excellent!

RAY: You are amazed that these letters are always correct in their predictions, even though some are upsets.

TOM: Wow! This is great! Somebody really knows something!

RAY: Shortly after the Rose Bowl, you receive a letter stating that if you send 10 grand to a certain address one week before the Super Bowl, you'll receive a letter with the winner of that event.

TOM: Mmm.

RAY: The question simply is: Should you use the 10 grand that you are about to invest in the Tappet Brothers Capital Depreciation Fund and take a chance?

TOM: Why not?

RAY: Why not? Well, how could this guy who's sending you these letters--we've got to assume it's a guy, because women wouldn't do anything this nefarious--how could he possibly be right all the time?

TOM: Wow! This is...this is...

RAY: And if he had been right the first seven times...

TOM: Wow.

RAY: Wouldn't you assume that he'd be right the eighth time? I mean...

TOM: I would.

RAY: Well, you'd lose the 10 grand, you dope! Here's what he did.

TOM: I think this is a brilliant scam.

RAY: Man, it's brilliant. He sends out 200, and let's, for the sake of simplicity...he sends out 256 letters.

TOM: That's...

RAY: About the heavyweight championship match.

TOM: What is that? Two to the what?

RAY: Yeah, the eighth or something.

TOM: One, two, three...eighth.

RAY: Something like that, isn't it?

TOM: It is the eighth, yeah.

RAY: And he sends out 256, but half of them say Jack Dempsey's going to win the heavyweight championship and the other half, the 128 other ones, say Evander Holyfield's going to win the thing.

TOM: And they weren't even fighting.

RAY: And they weren't even fighting, but...

TOM: But he guessed the winner anyway.

RAY: So, you get one of the letters, perhaps, that says Evander Holyfield's going to win, and he wins.

TOM: So, he sends out 256 letters and 128...128 of those people got a winning letter.

RAY: And the other 128 must be discarded.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: He then takes the 128 and divides that in half, so he sends 64 letters about the next event, and 64 letters contrary, with contrary results, and he throws away half of them again. And it just so happens that every time, you're on the winner's side. Somebody has to be.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: In fact, half the people have to be.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: Until he gets down to one person. He gets down to you. He's been right every time.

TOM: Yeah. See, I think...

RAY: And now, he says to you, "Send me 10 grand, and I'll tell you who's going to win the Super Bowl."

TOM: And you say, how can this guy lose?

RAY: Except you got a 50-50 chance, which is exactly what you had without the letter.

TOM: But, see, wait a minute. We have to discuss this further. Because I think this is a legitimate scam.

RAY: Is it legal?

TOM: I think he went about it wrong.

RAY: Oh, you do, hunh?

TOM: Yeah. The trouble was, he didn't mail out enough.

RAY: Oh, exactly. Exactly.

TOM: He's got to mail out thousands of them. That way, instead of asking for $10,000 at the end...

RAY: He's asking for $10,000 from hundreds of people.

TOM: I know. Ten thousand makes people think about it too much. Fifty bucks.

RAY: Fifty bucks from thousands of people.

TOM: From many thousands of people.

RAY: Yeah.

TOM: I'm gonna do this tonight!

RAY: There's got to be law against this. I hope!

TOM: I don't see why.

RAY: There will be by next week!

TOM: What are you doing that's illegal? You're saying to people, look, if you send me 50 bucks, I'll send you this letter. And you're going to fulfill that. You're going to fulfill that.

RAY: That's why the prisons are full of guys like you!

TOM: I think it's great!

RAY: Do we have a winner this week?

TOM: Yeah, we do. The winner is Mark Jugger from Salem, Oregon.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]