the letters' preferences are as follows: A 642531 B 531642 C 246135 D 135246 the numbers' preferences are like so: 1 ABCD 2 ABDC 3 ACDB 4 DCBA 5 DBAC 6 DBCA running it forwards we get: A6 B5 C2 D1 running it backwards we get: 1ABCD 2AC 3CD. 4D. 5B 6A which is the same thing. it's more interesting to do by hand iteratively than to see the results...