Game on (2 July 2020)

Continuing from last week

This is a reasonable set of 10 cards. We can obtain no less than three empty columns – if we so choose. But what do we do for an encore? Recall that an action ends when we expose at least one more card, so getting an empty column doesn’t cut it for an advanced player. Column ‘b’ sounds like the best source of new turnovers since any other column requires us to spend at least two empty columns. So we have three guaranteed turnovers since there are three empty columns and at least three face-down cards in column ‘b’.

We should also start thinking about removing suits. There is no suit with all 13 cards visible, but we can “threaten” to remove a suit or two. The Six of Spades is a nice card since it enables us to complete a run from King to Three. We can also guarantee a run from King to Five in Diamonds. With the 3-2-A in sight we have a “twelve-suit” with only the Four missing. With 30 cards in the stock and 15 in the tableau it is heavy odds on the Four of Diamonds will be found in the stock (recall there are two decks so the odds are better than 2:1). Unfortunately, building these partial runs will imply a reduction in our minimum guaranteed turnovers. I guess one could compromise, e.g. turn over one card and still retain options of building partial runs. So there is plenty to think about and it is difficult for even an expert to find a “definitive best play”.

Another consideration is that we have had a relatively easy run so far, so we might expect some “bad luck” given the hand is not random (we chose Master level). The initial row had 5 turnovers, and both rounds 1 and 2 have at least 4 turnovers (pretending they are the start of a new hand). So I won’t be surprised if something unpleasant happens on the next round of 10 cards. I guess if the next round is e.g. all odd cards then we probably can’t do much about it anyway. So we will cross that bridge when we come to it, if you pardon the terrible cliché.

At this stage of the game I will not give a sequence of moves but simply give the resulting diagram and leave it as an exercise for the reader to verify this diagram can indeed be obtained from the initial position.

The Jack of Hearts is a good card giving us an easy move that even my Dad can’t 70,85,67,75 up.

<bc> 8c

That’s a nice card. Shifting the 5s onto the 6s gives us a suited build, an empty column (Q of Hearts onto K of Diamonds) and a turnover (8c onto 9s). Nice!

<bi> 4d

Note the use of procrastination. We can always get our empty column back.

<bg> 9h

Aha! We drew a Nine so we retrieve our empty column without having to commit to <ed>. We might choose to empty column ‘j’ – this allows us to connect the 32A in Diamonds and recall that we have a twelve-suit in Diamonds with only the Four missing – no wait up, we just turned a Four of Diamonds two moves ago. Things are looking good!

Exercise for the reader:

• Can we complete a full suit of Diamonds?
• If yes can we procrastinate? i.e. can we turnover a new card (not necessarily column ‘b’) and still retain the option of removing the Diamonds?