The Grand Master, the principal adviser to the King, had maintained a blog about Spider Solitaire for a whole year.
“Thank you, Grand Master, for this most wonderful blog,” said the King. “I enjoyed reading your silly stories. However I can’t claim it has improved my game tremendously so I can only offer you a small reward.”
The King gives the Grand Master a sack of wheat.
“How dare you offer such a modest reward for the world’s best blog on Spider Solitaire!” replied Spider GM. “As far as I know, I am the world’s best player of Four Suit Spider Solitaire sans boop. This is a travesty!”
“What nonsense!” retorted the King. “I have several men who can wield a mean deck of cards – or two.”
The King corrected himself at the last minute, recalling that Spider Solitaire was played with 104 cards, not 52.
The Grand Master offered to play a 30-game match against each of the top ten players chosen by the King. A 30-game match would consist of 15 games by each player, Four-Suit sans boop and whoever won more games would win the match. Spider GM offered “draw odds” to every player, meaning that if both won the same number of games it was tantamount to the Spider GM losing the match. Not surprisingly Spider GM wiped the floor with each and every one of them.
Sensing the King was utterly humiliated, the Spider GM suggested the following deal: he had to publish one blog post for the first card, twice that for the second card, twice that for the third, and so on. Once all 104 cards in Spider Solitaire were accounted for, Spider GM would enjoy 104 consecutive nights in a palace with 104 dancing girls per night. Spider GM was allowed to count the 104 articles he had already written towards the however-many-were-required needed to reach his end goal.
The King knew the arrogant 66,65,83,84,65,82,68 had a couple of blog posts lined up already, perhaps between 50 and 100, but reluctantly agreed to the bargain.
THIS IS GONNA BE WILD, the Grand Master thought to himself. He was well on the way to completing the next square, which will be marked 128.
Edifying Thoughts of a Spider Solitaire Addict 