139 persons have signed for an elimination tournament.All players are to be paired for the first round but because 139 is an odd number ,one player gets a bye, which promotes him to to the second round,without playing in the first round.This continues in subsequent rounds as well.Find the minimum number of matches that must be played to determine the champion.

1) 136
2) 137
3) 138
4) 139

• This can be logically done in the following manner. There are 139 players in all. We want to determine 1 champion among them.
  
  So all except 1 should lose. Since a player can lose only once and since any match produces only one loser, to produce 138 losers, there should be 138 matches that should be played.
• 8 years agoHelpfull: Yes(4) No(0)
• Persons=139; 1 bye
  1st round:138=2*69
  2nd round=69+1=70=2*35
  3rd round=35=2*17; 1 bye
  4th round=17+1=18=2*9
  5th round=9=2*4; 1 bye
  6th round=4+1=5=2*2; 1 bye
  7th round=2+1=3=2*1; 1 bye
  8th round=1+1=2=2*1
  Total matches=69+35+17+9+4+2+1+1=138
• 8 years agoHelpfull: Yes(1) No(0)
• its like (n-1)...
• 7 years agoHelpfull: Yes(0) No(1)