Game over, we win!

Continuing from the previous post, the recommended action is

• Clear the Spade suit
• Exchange the 6-5-4-3-2-A of Hearts in Column 5 with the 6-5-4-3 of Clubs in Column 6.
• Dump the 9-8 of Clubs in Column 3 into the empty column
• Clear the Heart suit, winning back the empty column
• Shift the Qh-Jd onto the Kh in Column 1, turning over a face-down card in Column 6 (and keeping an empty column)

Note that I went to the extra effort to clear a card in Column 6 rather than Column 5. This is because clearing cards in Column 6 is harder than Column 5 (especially since the Q-J are offsuit). As a general principle it is often wise to save an easy task for later and get the “difficult task” over and done with whenever possible – this helps avoid the embarrassing situation of “One Hole No Card” as alluded to in a previous post.

The resulting position is shown below, with the newly-exposed card redacted.

This is a lock

The astute reader may have noticed I violated the principle of procrastination by removing the Spade suit unnecessarily. This is because the game is in fact mathematically won.

To see this, let us consider all possible face-down cards (which we identified from last week):

• Queen of Clubs: this can go “underneath” the Jack of Clubs (Jack onto Queen, winning an empty column, Q-J to Column 8, losing an empty column)
• Queen of Diamonds: this goes onto the King of Clubs
• Ten of Clubs: this goes onto the Jack of Clubs
• Ten of Diamonds: this goes onto the Jack of diamonds
• Ten of Hearts: this goes onto the Jack of Hearts
• Nine of Diamonds: this goes underneath the 8-7 of Diamonds
• Seven of Clubs: this goes onto the Eight of Clubs
• Six of Hearts: we will count this as a “bad card” since the 7 of Diamonds is offsuit (and will counterfeit the Nine of Diamonds). This goes into the empty column
• Five of Hearts: This is a bad card and goes into the empty column.

Note that the first seven cards are good, and we don’t even require an empty column to achieve the corresponding action. The only possible snag is there are two bad cards and only one empty column. But wait! If we draw both the Five and Six of Hearts then we can immediately place the Five on top of the Six. The net effect is to condense two bad cards into one – hence there is no snag after all.

Finally we also check that there is no issue with one-hole-no-card. Assuming we turnover all cards in Column Six first we will eventually get an empty column in Column Six and then we can choose randomly between shifting the Jh in Column 2 or the 9-8-7 of Hearts in Column 5 into the new empty column. Essentially we are “pretending” that all nine face-down cards are in Column 6.

It turns out the redacted card is the Seven of Clubs. The rest of the face-down cards in Column 6 are: Ten of Diamonds, Queen of Clubs, Queen of Diamonds.

The starting layout is shown below

Summary

This was a difficult game. The first ten cards were average, a minimum of three guaranteed turnovers, but two in-suit builds and no Aces or Kings. I only turned Four cards in round 0, but had an excellent Round 1 with several turnovers thanks to an empty column, but then got a catastrophic middle game with four Kings appearing on the same deal. Just when a loss seemed certain, I managed to find chances by clearing a complete set of Spades. I procrastinated by waiting until both Spade Kings were exposed so then I could decide which was the better King to remove. On the last round, I had three guaranteed turn-overs and realised all hope was not lost. I survived kadoban in the endgame and managed to win. I worked out victory was mathematically certain with only nine face-down cards remaining.

I hope you enjoyed playing through this game as much as I did.