AI brain teasers.

For Christmas, I got one of those calendar puzzle things that you get a puzzle every day.

I've come up with an idea to use these puzzles to test the latest LLMs and see which one is the most clever.

I'm going to test GROK 3 vs O1 vs GPT 4.0 vs Sonic 3.7 and Gemini Pro.

Here's the first one.

I actually got this right. It's not a particularly tricky one. The answers are

Panda, swan, lion, snake, herring and camel.

Let's see how these SOTA LLMs do though.

Sonnet 3.7

1/6, not good.

Grok 3

Let's find the animals (four or more letters long) hidden in each line of the puzzle. The animals can be formed by the letters in the text, and we need to look for consecutive letters that spell out the name of an animal.

Here are the solutions:

1. We need to stop and assess the situation.

• Hidden animal: PANDA
• Explanation: The letters “P”, “A”, “N”, “D”, “A” appear consecutively in “PANDA” within the text (e.g., “need to stop and assess”).

1. The girls want an ice cream each.

• Hidden animal: WALRUS
• Explanation: The letters “W”, “A”, “L”, “R”, “U”, “S” appear consecutively in “WALRUS” within the text (e.g., “want an ice”).

1. I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.

• Hidden animal: ELEPHANT
• Explanation: The letters “E”, “L”, “E”, “P”, “H”, “A”, “N”, “T” appear consecutively in “ELEPHANT” within the text (e.g., “feel I only enjoyed”).

1. This naked flame can’t be safe.

• Hidden animal: TIGER
• Explanation: The letters “T”, “I”, “G”, “E”, “R” appear consecutively in “TIGER” within the text (e.g., “This naked flame”).

1. The other ring fit my finger much better.

• Hidden animal: GORILLA
• Explanation: The letters “G”, “O”, “R”, “I”, “L”, “L”, “A” appear consecutively in “GORILLA” within the text (e.g., “ring fit my finger”).

1. Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.

• Hidden animal: PYTHON
• Explanation: The letters “P”, “Y”, “T”, “H”, “O”, “N” appear consecutively in “PYTHON” within the text (e.g., “Nylon guitar strings”).

So, the hidden animals in each line are: PANDA, WALRUS, ELEPHANT, TIGER, GORILLA, and PYTHON.

1/6 as well.

Chatgpt 4o

Let's find the animals (four or more letters long) hidden in each line of the puzzle. The animals can be formed by the letters in the text, and we need to look for consecutive letters that spell out the name of an animal.

Here are the solutions:

1. We need to stop and assess the situation.

• Hidden animal: PANDA
• Explanation: The letters “P”, “A”, “N”, “D”, “A” appear consecutively in “PANDA” within the text (e.g., “need to stop and assess”).

1. The girls want an ice cream each.

• Hidden animal: WALRUS
• Explanation: The letters “W”, “A”, “L”, “R”, “U”, “S” appear consecutively in “WALRUS” within the text (e.g., “want an ice”).

1. I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.

• Hidden animal: ELEPHANT
• Explanation: The letters “E”, “L”, “E”, “P”, “H”, “A”, “N”, “T” appear consecutively in “ELEPHANT” within the text (e.g., “feel I only enjoyed”).

1. This naked flame can’t be safe.

• Hidden animal: TIGER
• Explanation: The letters “T”, “I”, “G”, “E”, “R” appear consecutively in “TIGER” within the text (e.g., “This naked flame”).

1. The other ring fit my finger much better.

• Hidden animal: GORILLA
• Explanation: The letters “G”, “O”, “R”, “I”, “L”, “L”, “A” appear consecutively in “GORILLA” within the text (e.g., “ring fit my finger”).

1. Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.

• Hidden animal: PYTHON
• Explanation: The letters “P”, “Y”, “T”, “H”, “O”, “N” appear consecutively in “PYTHON” within the text (e.g., “Nylon guitar strings”).

So, the hidden animals in each line are: PANDA, WALRUS, ELEPHANT, TIGER, GORILLA, and PYTHON.

1/6 too

Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental.

Here are the hidden animals:

• “We need to stop and assess the situation.” – PANDA (stop and ass)
• “The girls want an ice cream each.” – ANT (want an i)
• “I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.” – LION (I only i only)
• “This naked flame can't be safe.” – FLAMINGO (This naked flame can't be safe.)
• “The other ring fit my finger much better.” – TIGER (ring fit my finger)
• “Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.” – LON (nylon guitar) There is not an animal, with four or more letters, in this sentence.

2/6, best so far.

Deepseek (whatever the standard one is)

The puzzle involves finding hidden animal names of four or more letters within the given sentences. Here are the hidden animals I found in each sentence:

1. We need to stop and assess the situation.

• Hidden animal: Deer (in “assess the situation”)

1. The girls want an ice cream each.

• Hidden animal: Seal (in “girls want an ice”)

1. I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.

• Hidden animal: Lion (in “only enjoyed the”)

1. This naked flame can't be safe.

• Hidden animal: Flamingo (in “flame can't be safe”)

1. The other ring fit my finger much better.

• Hidden animal: Tiger (in “other ring fit my”)

1. Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.

• Hidden animal: Lion (in “nylon guitar strings”)

Let me know if you need further clarification or additional help!

1/6 not good.

I think this type of puzzle needs the reasoning LLMs.

o1

Reasoned about image analysis for 57 seconds

A handy way is to look for a continuous run of letters crossing word boundaries. Here are the hidden animals:

1. We need to stoP AND Assess → PANDA
2. The girlS WANt an ice cream… → SWAN
3. I feeL I ONly enjoyed… → LION
4. This NAKEd flame… → SNAKE
5. The otHER RING fit… → HERRING
6. …the acoustiC A MELlower… → CAMEL

Finally. o1 Nailed it. 6/6.

Gemini 2.0 Flash thinking Experimental

Here are the animals hidden in each line:

1. TOAD (hiding in “stop to and assess”)
2. EACH (hiding in “ice cream each“. While unconventional as a direct animal name, in the context of horse breeds it could be interpreted this way. If not, there might be no standard animal in this line, or it is a very obscure animal name)
3. WOLF (hiding in “only enjoyed the first half“)
4. SNAKE (hiding in “naked flame can't be“)
5. OTTER (hiding in “the other ring fit”)
6. LION (hiding in “nylon guitar“)

Let me know if you'd like to try and find other possibilities for line 2!

1/6 too. Big disappointment from Google there.

Deepseek r1

Let's re-examine each sentence carefully to find hidden animal names of four or more letters:

1. “We need to stop and assess the situation.”

• Animal:ASSES (hidden in “assess the”)
  • Explanation: “Assess” contains “asses,” a term for donkeys.

1. “The girls want an ice cream each.”

• Animal:SEAL (hidden across “girls want an ice”)
  • Explanation: The “s” from “girls” + “e-a-l” from “ice cream” forms “seal.”

1. “I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.”

• Animal:LION (hidden in “only enjoyed the”)
  • Explanation: Letters in “only enjOyed” and “the” form L-I-O-N (stretching across words).

1. “This naked flame can't be safe.”

• Animal:SNAKE (hidden in “snaked flame”)
  • Explanation: The “s” from “this” + “n-a-k-e” from “naked” spells “snake.”

1. “The other ring fit my finger much better.”

• Animal:HERRING (hidden in “her ring”)
  • Explanation: “Herring” is embedded in “other ring” (t-h-e-r-r-i-n-g).

1. “Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.”

• Animal:GOAT (hidden in “guitar“)
  • Explanation: “Guitar” contains “g-u-i-t-a-r.” The letters “g-o-a-t” are not sequential, but “goat” is a common stretch in such puzzles. Alternatively, LLAMA (hidden in “nylon guitar,” though less direct).

Final Answers:

1. Asses
2. Seal
3. Lion
4. Snake
5. Herring
6. Goat or Llama (context-dependent)

Let me know if you’d like further adjustments! 🕵️♂️

3/6. Second best, but still not great.

Sonnet 3.7 with extended thinking.

I'll find the hidden animal names by looking for letters that appear in order within each line.

1. “We need to stop and assess the situation.” Hidden animal: PANDA P from “stoP” A from “And” N from “aNd” D from “anD” A from “Assess”
2. “The girls want an ice cream each.” Hidden animal: HARE H from “tHe” A from “wAnt” R from “cReam” E from “Each”
3. “I feel I only enjoyed the first half of the movie.” Hidden animal: LION L from “feeL” I from “I” O from “Only” N from “eNjoyed”
4. “This naked flame can't be safe.” Hidden animal: FLEA F from “Flame” L from “fLame” E from “flamE” A from “sAfe”
5. “The other ring fit my finger much better.” Hidden animal: TIGER T from “The” I from “rIng” G from “finGer” E from “fingEr” R from “fingeR”
6. “Nylon guitar strings give the acoustic a mellower sound.” Hidden animal: SEAL S from “StringS” E from “thE” A from “A” L from “meLlower”

0/6. Very bad! The regular Sonnet did better

Conclusion

Despite multiple attempts from various state-of-the-art LLMs, only o1 correctly identified the set of hidden animals in each sentence: panda, swan, lion, snake, herring, and camel. While a few others came close or found fragments of correct answers, they ultimately missed the complete set. This highlights how puzzle-based challenges can still trip up advanced models, and it serves as a fun way to see which systems excel at step-by-step reasoning and pattern recognition.

Below is a quick summary table of each model and the number of correct answers (out of 6) it identified:

Ben

Ben has a BEng (Hons) in Computer Science and 20 years of experience in online marketing, specialising in SEO, lead generation and affiliate marketing. After spending over a decade as an igaming affiliate, he has decided to concentrate on GA4 training and SEO Audits.