Ishikawa,

The trick is that each instruction sends you to fewer possible places to be.

The easiest way to see this is to look at all possible results after each instruction is completed.

After picking one of the 8 green balloons, you are instructed to move left or right to the nearest red balloon. If you started with balloons 2, 3 or 4, you are forced to balloon 1. If you chose 5, you will next be at 6. If you chose 9, 11, or 12, you will be forced to 10. If you chose 13, you will be forced to 14.

So you started with 8 possible places to be , but after just the one instruction, you are now at one of only 4 possible places. (1, 6, 10, or 14).

The next instruction tells you to move up or down resulting in only balloons 2 and 5 being possibilities.

Moving diagonally from them gets you to 7 and 10 and the final instruction forces you to balloon 11.

Magic in a Minute by Mac and Bill King

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