I was talking about the grand-parent comment's method:

> You can check you’re right if (a) the first digit of the result is 1 less than the number you started with

The first digit of the result is 2 ... And the number that you started with is also 2, which is not 1 less... I guess I am not smarter then a 5th grader

Wow! You definitely are smarter than me, the gp, at least! You’re right that my claim isn’t right in general. Hell, not even past 10, I can now see!

I’m curious, how did you find that counterexample? I kind of ‘overfitted’ my mental model to the first 10 integers. But as a statistician I’m only in the business of being approximately right...! Nice catch.

23x9=207 starts with 20 which is 3 less than 23... 24x9=216, and 21 is 3 less than 24. 11x9=99 and 9 is 2 less than 11, 12x9=108 and 10 is 2 less than 12. So 0-9 are offset by 1, 10-19 are offset by 2, 20-29 offset by 3, 30-49 offset by 4?