Hedgeworth, Bigsby, and Tiebelle

It was the final week before the valley science fair when two groups of young animals came to them, both a little frantic. The teal group had tested one solitaire rule. The gold group had tested another. Each group had forty deals, the same forty, fairly dealt.

"Teal won twenty-two," said a teal rabbit. "Gold won twenty-five. So gold wins, right? We need to know by Friday."

Hedgeworth pushed up his glasses. That meant it was his turn. "First," he said, "let's say only what the data can say." He looked at their results. Some deals were not sure yet. "With those unknowns, teal's rule won at least twenty-two and at most twenty-seven. Gold's rule won at least twenty-five and at most twenty-nine." He drew the two ranges on his clipboard as two bars.

Tiebelle stepped forward next, silent as always, and held up her ribbons. She laid the teal one along teal's range and the gold one along gold's range. They overlapped, a long stretch of teal lying across a long stretch of gold.

"Where they cross," she said softly, "either rule could be the better one. With these ranges, nobody gets the crown yet. It's a tie."

The gold group groaned. "But Friday!"

That's when Bigsby set down his tall stack with a soft thump. "Then we don't argue," he rumbled. "We test more deals. Your ranges are wide because forty deals isn't very many. More deals will make them narrower."

So they did, all together. They ran both rules on two hundred deals, the same two hundred for each rule, and asked the solver to search a little longer so fewer came back unsure. It took the whole afternoon. Bigsby carried stack after stack. Nobody complained.

When the results came in, Hedgeworth drew the new ranges. They were much shorter now, tight little bars. Tiebelle held her ribbons up again, and this time something had changed. The ribbons had pulled apart. The gold ribbon sat higher, with a clear gap of empty space between it and the teal one.

"Now," said Tiebelle, and she smiled, "now there's a winner. The gold rule really does win more deals, and we've earned the right to say so."

The gold group cheered. And to everyone's surprise, the teal group cheered too. It felt good to get a real answer, even one that wasn't yours.

"Would you have been wrong on Friday if you'd just said gold wins?" Hedgeworth asked the teal rabbit.