ZIP Chess Challenge! by Bob Lodge
This contest has five parts:
[I] Find 13 U.S. towns and their 5-digit ZIP codes.
[II] Manipulate the ZIP code digits into a precisely ordered set of numbers.
[III] Follow further instructions to use the numbers to set up a chess problem.
[IV] Solve the chess problem, with a chess player's help if needed.
[V] Construct a Powerball-like entry using numbers derived from Parts [I]-[IV].
As continued work based on wrong answers will be pointless, periodic Checkpoints provide confirmation to guide the solver. Stop if they do not jibe with current progress! Find and correct errors before proceeding!
ENCRYPTION: IMPORTANT! Each [BOLD BRACKETED CAPS] encrypted multi-word group uses one or the other of two complimentary keys, e.g., if A means Z in one key, then Z means A in the other. BUT, in each encrypted SINGLE word, EACH letter may use EITHER key! (At least one word is encoded twice, but not identically.) Two nested sets of brackets [[ ]] means to decode twice, each time per the usual rule. In two steps the initial letters will transform into a desired word or phrase. With complimentary keys, some letters may possibly revert back to themselves. The intermediate result need not be meaningful.
Part [I] : Thirteen ZIP codes
Using clues A-M and Six Mix, find thirteen U.S. towns, and their 5-digit ZIP codes, acceptable per http://www.usps.com/. Each is a one-ZIP community.
Hint: One of the last 6 states (H-M) begins with one of the first three letters (A-C). All others begin with one of the last eighteen letters (I-Z).
Six Mix -- Six towns have two-word names, using 12 of these 16 alphabetized words encrypted with one common key. Plural or possessive forms may also be used. Two are in the same state, and the five states each begin with one of three letters.
[GYRP GAMES GNAR VELX AEOM AMIR ANNONFR LMGO NEO WNYLR SYZMS QVEXP QYXM QWSYLB RVSMM RKYL]
Clue A
If you stick around this place, you'll be at the same latitude as the seat of the county whose every point is south of one in the adjacent county that G is in, and the same longitude as a mile inside the eastern border of a county, named for the second person named on a stamp mentioned in Clue E, in the state C is in.
Clue B
Be careful! It may be sharp!
Clue C
Town beginning with the same letter as the county inside which it lines up vertically with the county seat and at least three other towns, directly on a line of longitude that does not pass through any state whose USPS abbreviation [MLXQ YL E NS L], but is exactly midway between two other lines that pass through the U.S. and are each designated in Degrees West Longitude by the first two or three digits of two of the other ZIP codes (but not A, which needs this answer!)
Clue D
Parts of three different states lie within a circle only ten miles in diameter, with this town at the exact center.
Clue E
A mean or proportional, in a way, between A*C*(B+C) and (2*A-1)*((((B/(A-2))+1)^2)+C-1) (using BASIC nomenclature), of the function f(x) = x3+2, if
A = Number of ex-Presidents still living at start of term of the one shown on a U.S. stamp issued on the [JFYLJMLBALETP] of the person on the stamp with a [LOLCTLE KU "XFEAB LJ NKKY"] on the same page as the [JMYLJMLXMLLSI] stamp seen as Stamp-X, in the stamp collection website at http://album.dweeb.org/
B = Total number of counties in: the antepenultimate U.S. state in a list in ascending order of area, the state just preceding it in that list, and every state adjacent to the smaller of the two
C = the string [C IS IN X* Y*] modified as follows:
1. Follow steps below to find X* and Y*, and substitute them into the string.
2. Remove all spaces, and also one of the double letters, leaving 25 letters.
3. Move the middle three letters in a block and insert between the two letters with the largest [RZLSMX] frequency, where they are adjacent.
4. Do a Shuffle, per Operation Obfuscation procedures, in Capital Craziness.
X* is a string of letters, not a word. First find these two 5-letter words:
(1) [ZYNAE RSYGNANS VNSRMLQYQ]
(2) [JANXFJ JTKPB PZFJZ JLO GA YNLIAB]
Write the two answers side by side, in the order given, then below write 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0, with each digit under one letter, to make a key.
Checkpoints: (1) All 10 letters are different. (2) Alphabetize letters, and of the four corresponding numbers comprising the first digit (under A) through 1 3 7 or 9, only one is prime, while the other three each factor only one way: a prime less than 50 times a prime more than 100.
Next, find the two 5-digit ZIP codes for:
1. Town with same first letter as J, directly north (in the next adjacent county) of the eastern border of the county (in a state admitted to the Union less than [INTXI] days before a new President took office) containing a town with the same name as a county mentioned in clue H
2. In the birthplace of the youngest person in Pic01-13, an address whose number is the product of all digits in the ZIP code of M that do not occupy the same or an adjacent position in the ZIP codes of either G or J, on a street with the same name as the tiny town 2 or 3 km north of the westernmost point of [RNNNRZFTO]
Per the key developed above, write the corresponding letter above each digit of the product of the two ZIP codes. The resulting string of letters is X*.
Y* is the middle 2 or 3 words (depending on parity), in order, of the description in a [RMEEFX NKC] entry at one of the five results of a Custom Search on the word fragment [[**]] at http://www.[WMEWKLTA].com, dated the day two people shared a birthday, when one, the host of a TV talk show, was twice the age of the other, who had been a guest on that show when it aired on the birthday of two people in Pic01-13, again when one (possibly posthumously) was twice the age of the other! Another show guest that day was the person who replaced the person whose surname is an anagram of [RVM DEYQMS], but only after [USMLGZ] and [MLBNFRV] have replaced each other. ** is the number, in Roman Numerals, of the highway between the offices of Greg Bartlett and Blake Dorning, who have the same occupation.
Clue F
She used to date a football player from [GLARYENTA].
Clue G
James Hall and his wife Katherine moved to this southwest town from one with the same name in another state, where his old Marine buddy, Adam Shore, lives in a different town with his wife Dina. The couples seldom see each other, but all are singers, and they exchange homemade CD's of carols and hymns every Christmas.
Clue H
Town whose name is this: Start with the name of
the county directly west of a county in which
yet a third town has the same name as two towns named alike in the [WSMZYNFQ GAFM], remove three consecutive letters with R in the middle, then preface with the state abbreviation referenced in the [UKNNKPFOC JNMA].