Answer

Brute force will tell you that Alice has L, Barry has H+K+N, Charlie has I+R+Y, Dawn has Ö+P+Q+J, and Edgar has B+E+T. V is one of the Black Vienna.

In addition, Barry must have one of G or X. So must Charlie. So Alice must have F and O.

Edgar is the only player with C or Z. He cannot have both. He knows that, too, as you cannot have any not in AKMOSU. If he had neither, he would have known the answer, so he has exactly one. Which one? Note his early guesses: BLM, JTY, DJZ, HUZ. He always guessed a card of which he held exactly one spy. That suggests he has Z. Therefore C is in Black Vienna.

Now, Alice is the only player who can hold D or W. She must have exactly one of those; she's known to have L+F+O, so she cannot have both, and if she had neither, she would have guessed earlier. Her last question was to ask DLS of Barry. Why? She knew she had L and she knew you had S. No one knew Barry didn't have D until that question, except Barry. So she needed to know. Therefore, she doesn't have D, which means D is in Black Vienna.

Therefore, Black Vienna is probably CDV. We also know that Alice held FLOW, Barry HKN and G or X, Charlie IRY and G or X, Dawn JÖPQ, and Edgar BETZ. It is more consistent with Barry's guessing pattern that he holds G, but it's not clear, as he is a strong player.


Updated May 2004 with a suggestion from Jonathan Franklin, who caught something I overlooked.
Jeff Goldsmith, jeff@gg.caltech.edu, May 31, 2001