
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
In a tournament, each participant was supposed to play exactly one game with each of the remaining participants. However, two participants dropped out during the tournament after playing only 4 games each. As a result, the total number of games played was 62. How many participants were there in total?

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
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