Nice Game

Anupam sent this very interesting puzzle.

Zack and I solved it in 10 minutes. Lets see what you do! Remember to post your solutions in the comments section.



"Mr. A chooses a digit and Mr. B puts it anywhere in place of one of these 8 dashes -

_ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _

(So these are actually two 4 digit numbers, one being subtracted from the other )

Now Mr. A repeatedly keeps on the choosing a digit and giving it to Mr. B and Mr. B keeps on putting it in somewhere in place of the dashes, till all the dashes fill up.

Now the game is that Mr.A is trying to maximize the final difference (which will be obtained after finally subtracting these two numbers), and Mr. B is trying to minimize it.

What difference will be obtained if both players play their best in the game :-)"


Answers to FAQs:
- Numbers from 0 to 9, repetition allowed. The "difference" we are talking about here is algebraic, so negative numbers are smaller than positive numbers.


cheers
-A