Winning a rigged game – a fun riddle

Someone sent me a fun riddle that I wanted to share:

In a distant kingdom lived a king and his beautiful daughter. The daughter was in love with a peasant which the king strongly objects. However, he decided to show his fairness.

He gave the peasant a chance. He said he will let the peasant draw from 2 slips of paper, one of which has the word MARRIAGE written and the word DEATH on the other. The peasant agreed. On the way to the castle, the peasant over-heard the king and his knight talking.

Knight: “Sire, how can you let someone like him have the chance to marry the princess?”

King: “Don’t worry, I have written the word death on both paper”

Being a clever boy, the peasant found a way and later that day, married the princess. What did he do?

Can you figure out the answer?

The answer

From one perspective, the peasant is in a bind. The game is rigged so that he will pick a paper that says DEATH.

The trick is to exploit the knowledge of the onlookers and the common knowledge of the game.

The correct game should have one paper saying DEATH and the other MARRIAGE. This rule is known to the peasant, the king and all the audience.

So here’s the trick: the peasant doesn’t show which paper he picks!

The peasant picks a paper and hides it/destroys it. He says he’s too afraid to look at his choice, so let the king reveal to the audience the paper he didn’t pick.

When the paper is revealed to show DEATH, everyone will think the peasant must have picked MARRIAGE. The alternative is the king would have to reveal the game was rigged and that might ruin his reputation of fairness.

And so the peasant wins and lives happily ever after