Carsten focuses on distance

Carsten immediately wastes a question by asking Mark if he is currently thinking about a shoe.

He looks around the room, then asks if Mark is wearing the shoe in question (no), before asking if the shoe is within three metres of where they are currently standing (no). He immediately follows up by asking if the shoe is within three and a half metres of where they are standing (yes).

He unintentionally burns another question by asking Mark if he has a tape measure. Carsten is not provided with a tape measure, so he uses his next question to determine where in the room he should look. He tells Mark to turn his head to the left, then asks him if he is looking towards the shoe. Mark replies that he is, so Carsten finally moves away from the central plinth and starts looking at the shoes more closely.

Unfortunately for Carsten, he decides to start using his questions to have Mark confirm or deny whether individual pairs of shoes are the shoes in question, starting at almost the polar opposite location of where the correct shoe is, resulting in his burning through many more questions.

Carsten finally finds the correct pair of shoes, but is forced to ask one more question by holding up the incorrect shoe from the pair and asking Mark if it is the correct shoe.

In the studio, Carsten admits that he did not have a strategy until he was midway through the task, chalking up his early questions as “pure panic”.

Carsten finds the shoe after 29 questions, and wins the task.

(Written by Jenny R and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by Jenny R and adjusted by David Fuller)