by Victor Bryant

Published Sunday June 07 2026 (link)

Our squash club recently organised a round-robin tournament (ie, each participant played each of the others once), with each game resulting in a win for one of the players. An even number of players, fewer than 28, took part. At the end of the tournament a player’s score was the number of games he or she had won.

It turned out that each player’s score was a prime number, and each prime number less than the number of players occurred as somebody’s score. Furthermore each such score was achieved by a prime number of players! The players who tied bottom shared equally the £10 booby prize.

How many players were there, and what was the most common score?