Continuing from last week, we had the task of removing the Heart suit after dealing the third round:
Schistocerca Americana has somehow transmogrified into Schrodinger Americana, simultaneously obtaining a score of ten and zero for the same question. It could be ten if you count effort, or zero if you count accomplishment. But unless we specify effort or accomplishment and force his score to be one or the other, his score will remain in a quantum state.
To be more specific, SA gave a detailed sequence of moves but forgot the first row of cards had already been dealt – and therefore (practically) every move after the first deal was illegal.
With neither SA or BW giving a detailed solution, I will satisfy myself with general considerations. After the third deal every card in Hearts is easily accessible, either in the tableau or stock. By easily accessible I mean we don’t have a stupid situation such as a beautiful run from King to Deuce in a single column and that pesky Ace hidden behind three Kings in a row in the designated rubbish column. Therefore, we can probably luck our way into a solution without looking ahead too much. The diagram below shows an example game state. I have not given a detailed sequence of moves. All that is really required is to arrange matters so that you can easily recover an empty column after dealing a fresh row of ten cards.
Well, we have our Heart suit. In the process I have discovered our score never goes below zero. But we still get +100 points for removing the Hearts (and I made an extra in-suit build thus bringing the score down to 99). Of course I do not claim these moves are optimal in the context of winning the whole game (instead of a single suit). But here we are.
By now, the assiduous reader will know what goals we should be aiming for and/or what traps to avoid. So I will ask the vaguest question possible – how would you continue from here?
In case you haven’t noticed, I have highlighted the next row in the stock corresponding to the game state with Score = 99. Hopefully Schrodinger Americana can transmogrify back into his usual self and avoid repeating the same mistake!
Edifying Thoughts of a Spider Solitaire Addict 
This one’s too hard for me. The one move that absolutely must be done is ia, getting that 2-4 of clubs onto one of the 3 exposed 5s, and exposing a 7. With the kings about to fall, we want to do our best to have garbage under them. Since that receiving 7 is valuable, we’ll want to put either the 2-6 of spades or the 2-6 of clubs back on it, depending on which suit we’re hoping to make. Column 4 is hopeless in that regard.
We’ll be able to get 2 to 3 spaces back, but I’m not so happy about them because it looks like when we try to do anything useful we use them up right away.
Each of the other 3 suits has major challenges. My intuition is not to make any suits after the 4th deal and wait for the 5th. So instead we need to dig. One promising column to dig in is 4 (d), because we have homes for the 2 4s that come up, and we can use one of them right away for the 3 that is about to fall, and the other for the 3 in column 8. The exposed king might be able to take the queen from column c.
That’s a part of a plan, but not one I can see through to victory. I guess I would probably lose this one, even though it presumably can be won.
LikeLike
Ahhh yes! I remember back when I was just a little nymph (which I guess could open up a whole ‘nother can of worms) Erwin, Al E. and I use to sit around in the backyard and drink sodas and theorize about cats and stuff whilst chewing on Copenhagen. My main job of course was to hop to it and get more sodas when we ran dry, and also to not say anything stupid. So at that early age I learned that a shut mouth is often mistaken for a wise mouth. And that of course begs the question: ”Why have I forgotten all those lessons of my youth and joined this group of upper intellectual types with my lips flappin’ like there aint enough breeze???”.
But I digress from today’s assignment.
Once again I have used my AncientExcel CheeterSheeter to set up a visual aid. Without this added cheat I might as well go Catfishing again. And yes, I begged Erwin to use a Catfish and not a real cat as many people would stop reading his work if he kept on killing cats. He told me that was crazy and I asked him to wait about 85 years for the Woke Crowd (Mob) to show up and they would ban and burn his work for being so cruel as to encourage people to poison cats. As I explained further, the thought of millions of alternate mental universes all working together intrigued him and the last I ever saw of him and Al E., they were wandering down the lane with a soda in each hand, deep in discussion.
Whoops, went the D route again
After setting up my extra visual aid with three groups; TurnOvers (two missing) above, cards “in play” center and Lurkers below. From then on I move things around in my head, so I warrant nothing beyond the third move to be accurate.
After much staring and saying to myself again and again, “No, HopHop, you can’t do that because (insert various reasons)”. But I have to do something, even if it is wrong. So I’m going to see how many voids I can set up after the fourth draw, Thanx Master Chi-Yuen I need all the help I can get getting the start point correct.
We can do 4 voids but I think I will try for a Dia run after the 4th draw and set up for a possible club run and at least one void after the 5th draw. We need the Dia 3 for this so we will work with 3 voids
Prepare Col 3 to accept Dia A
.cb, cf, bf, ce
Prepare Col 1 to accept the Club 6
.ia, ai
Fill Void with Heart J 10
.jb
Take 4th Draw,
Void Cols 1, 2 & 6. Here I want to introduce a new short script to denote the number of voids available after a move or a series of moves. V=2-1-7 will denote that I think I have two voids to work with, Cols 1 and 7.
.ab, jb, ba, fi, bi, ai, fa, fb, fe, be, ae, V=3-1-2-6
Now get the K Q of Dia hooked up in Col 10, giving up the void in Col 2
.db, ja, jf, jb, fb, aj, V=2-1-6
Do the Dia run giving up the void in Col 6
.df, hd, cd, cj, dj, V=1-1
I don’t know if what I have written is valid, I am forty-seven leagues outside my comfort zone.
If it is valid then I should think some housekeeping might be in the cards, pun intended, while thinking of a Club run next. I am beyond my abilities now so lets just see if we can get at least one void after the 5th draw.
So to continue from above at point V=1-1, fill void in Col 1 with the Club Q from Col 10 then if we can move the Club A in Col 10, we can move the Club Q J right back to Col 10 gaining a void in Col 1. Maybe like this:
.ja (Q only), V-0
Take final Draw
.fb, fi, ji, aj V=2-1-6
I can go no further.
LikeLike
Well done – your moves are correct despite your frequent forays in to the D-route. It may be worth learning notation for “super-moves” (borrowing from Freecell) since that would make your notation more concise and easier to follow.
LikeLike