# There are $6$ points in the plane such that each point is connected to exactly $3$ distinct points. Find the number of all possible pairs

There are $6$ points in the plane such that each point is connected to exactly $3$ distinct points. Find the number of all possible pairs. Example : If the points are $\{1,2,3,4,5,6\}$ such that $1$ is connected to $2,3,4$ then, $2,3,4$ will already be connected to $1$, so, you have to find the other two choices for these three numbers. And so on. We have to find all possible $(a,b)$ where $a,b$ represent the connected points like $(1,2), (1,3), \cdots$. Note that $(1,2)$ and $(2,1)$ will be same.

My take on the part : I think Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion will be appropriate here but cannot think of a solution using that. Also, by finding all possible choices for a pair $(a,b)$ seems hard. I did a brute force calculation and it seems to be $9$ pairs.

You are overthinking it. Every point is connected to $3$ points, so we have $6\cdot 3=18$ pairs, but we've counted each pair twice, so there are only $9$.