us states name game is a terrible example due to the limited number of states this game would be over almost as quickly as it started why consider over out of of states end in the letter 'a' of the four states that start in 'a' three alabama alaska arizona also end in 'a' and the fourth arkansas would lead you to either south carolina or south dakota both of which end in 'a' and thus you'd be stuck in an endless loop of states from which you cannot escape this loop is almost completely unavoidable the example given in the article is already stuck in this loop almost as many states start with a letter that no other state ends in so the only way these states would ever come up in gameplay is if you started with them of these states we also have the only state ending in a 't' connecticut and the only state ending in an 'h' utah thus you can add hawaii tennessee and texas to the list of states that will almost never come up the only way you won't end up stuck in the endless 'a' loop is if you somehow land on one of the five states delaware new hampshire tennessee unlikely as seen above kentucky and new jersey that end in a letter no other state starts with at which point the game would be over there are numerous other pitfalls consider ohio you could either loop endlessly on ohio or go to oklahoma thus falling into the 'a' loop or you could go to oregon from there you could go to nebraska nevada north carolina and north dakota all falling again into the 'a' loop or you could hit new hampshire or new jersey both game enders or new mexico which just takes you back where you started or finally new york new york then leads to kentucky ending the game or kansas falling via south carolina or south dakota back into the 'a' loop yet again maybe nations of the world would be a better example there's more of them for one thing though still quite a few ending or starting in 'a' and again a large number of which both start and end in 'a' so the loop still exists but it's larger and easier to get out of also most letters of the alphabet are represented at the beginning or end of at least one country so you'd be less likely to get stuck and there aren't so many of them which could never appear a few exist can't think of any countries ending in 'j' 'v' or 'z' sorry jordan vietnam venezuela and zimbabwe probably more but i'd have to do a more thorough search anyhow maybe i'm crazy for noticing stuff like this but i thought it was worth mentioning