Game on (8 May 2021)

Here is the position from last week

Our latest turnovers have not been good. We started with four guaranteed turnovers and only managed to increase it to five. On the other hand we did manage to find the Queen of Clubs – which means there may be some prospect of clearing the club suit (which Bart has correctly pointed out).

If you’re wondering why the Noble Spider GM has goofed, it’s because I was no longer able to connect the J-T-9 of clubs in column 4 with the 8-7-6-5 in column 10. By trying to be too clever with delaying certain non-reversible moves, I only succeeded in losing the ability to build the massive run of clubs. So maybe I shouldn’t have extolled the virtues of procrastination as per a previous post. In any case, it’s adios to our empty column, unless we get a good card.

It’s tempting to shift the Queen of Clubs into the hole, but Bart found the Wright idea (ba-dum-tish!!!) of tidying up the 8-7-6 of Spades with the moves df,ad.

There are several reasons why this is important:

• there are three Eights unseen as opposed to one King, therefor more chances of getting back the empty column
• The move bf would duplicate Queens in columns 7 and 8, and that also means less chances of getting back the empty column
• The most important reason is that we want to correct our earlier mistake with the Grand Master’s Goof from last week. In other words, if we get the empty column back we get the additional bonus of building in-suit. Note that any Nine will not yield an empty column, but we would still be able to correct the Grand Master’s Goof.

There is another possibility to consider. We can build in-suit with the 6-5 of spades in columns 1 and 5. This also allows us to swap the Twos of Clubs/Spades in column 5/9, thus tidying up our club suit. Because we have committed to completing the clubs, it makes sense to extend the run by one card. The downside of course is we expose another Ace. But since there is only one Five unseen, the Six of Spades is expendable. If the card gods give us the case Five – then they give us the case Five. I’m not sure why poker players use the term “case five” but I digress.

My recommended move sequence is: ea,ef,eh,ih,ie,he,hi,fi,df,ad.

And sure enough we do get a Nine – so now I can sleep with a clear conscience even if we do manage to lose the game!

It is now time to deal the final row of cards, but I will wait till tomorrow – for no other reason than to build up the suspense 😊