2013 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 24

Central High School is competing against Northern High School in a backgammon match. Each school has three players, and the contest rules require that each player play two games against each of the other school's players. The match takes place in six rounds, with three games played simultaneously in each round. In how many different ways can the match be scheduled?

$\textbf{(A)}\ 540\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 600\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 720\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 810\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 900$

Solution

Credit saurabh_g for this solution

Let us label the players of the first team $A$ , $B$ , and $C$ , and those of the second team, $X$ , $Y$ , and $Z$ . One way of scheduling all six rounds could be:

Round1---> AX BY CZ
Round2---->AX BZ CY
Round3---->AY BX CZ
Round4---->AY BZ CX
Round5---->AZ BX CY
Round6---->AZ BY CX

The above mentioned schedule ensures that each player of one team plays twice with each player from another team. Now you can generate a completely new schedule by permuting those 6 rounds and that can be done in $6!$ = $720$ ways.

So the answer is $720$

2013 AMC 10A (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 23	Followed by Problem 25
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2013 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 24

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