Hitherto we have focussed on improving our own game. Now is the time to turn the concept on its head and critique the play of others. Bwahhahahahahahaahahah 😊
If you’ve ever tried to improve at Spider Solitaire, no doubt at some point in your life you attempted to google search videos of other players plying their wares and (preferably) winning at the end. You probably also noticed that not everyone can reach the lofty heights of GM Jan Gustafsson killing it in Banter Blitz, crushing various chess players online while simultaneously trash-talking about irrelevant TV shows and what-not. I’m sure there are decent Spider Solitaire players out there, but that obviously doesn’t imply they know how to make high-quality videos.
Here is an example video of someone beating 4-suit Spider without rot13(haqb):
HOMEWORK:
For the following questions we will use the following six-point scale:
Part I
On a scale of 1 to rot13(ohyyfuvg) how would you rate
- The difficulty of the hand (1 = hardest)
- The strength of the player (1 = strongest)
- The quality of presentation (1 = best)
- Overall score (1 = best)
IMPORTANT: Do not attempt to justify your answers. This is intended as material for future blog posts. In other words, Now Me doesn’t wanna steal the thunder from Future Me.
Part II
Search for other videos of someone winning at the four-suit level without rot13(haqb). To avoid confusion the following requirements are specified:
- Must be four suits
- No rot13(haqb) – except for correcting obvious mouse-slips that don’t reveal face-down cards by accident.
- Must win – no glory for a near miss, even if the hand is ridic difficult 😊
- The complete game-play must be shown (e.g. no skipping the boring bits)
- Do not play more than one hand.
- A video is not DQ’ed for lame music, terrible jokes, swearing at every bad card or clumsy attempts at rick-rolling.
Answer the same four questions in Part I. If you found multiple videos, answer these questions for at most two videos with highest overall score only. Again, do not attempt to justify your answers.
FUN FACT: a bonne is a French term for nursemaid or housemaid.
Edifying Thoughts of a Spider Solitaire Addict 
Part 1. 5 difficulty, 5 skill, 3 presentation, 5 overall.
For skill, it’s hard, because I don’t know just how awful a “6” would be. Do we assume, say, people who can actually play a game of Spider 1-suit to completion but do it terribly? Maybe those who can’t play the game to completion fall off the bottom of the chart?
I wouldn’t know how to rate myself because I just don’t know what I’m comparing myself against. I would guess a 4 or 3? Or we could look at win percentages (I’m about 25%), but I still don’t know how to line up percentages with skill levels. I gather there are a fair number of people who say, “spider 4-suit can’t be won by any mortal”. I guess they are conceding and have a zero percentage, so does that make them a 6? I think this guy had about 11% if I read one of those screens right, though obviously the intention here is to judge him on what he does in this one game.
Part 2. Sorry, I don’t consider looking for things on the web like that to be fun. It’s work. I’m happy to follow other people’s links, but not get my own.
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FWIW, I first heard the phrase “Scale of one to rot13(ohyyfuvg)” from a former work colleague. Bristling with cynicism, that phrase would give several other expressions in the Trevornacular a run for their money! (if you pardon the terrible cliché).
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Hola Hola Esteemed Scholar Bart. I think you underrate yourself by far. But as you say, how do we rate others or even ourselves without some defined set of criteria? A persons winning percentage is as dependent on the difficulty of a given set of hands as it is on a players abilities. And as with any card game we cannot discount the luck factor. We need a setup similar to duplicate bridge wherein we can play the same hand and compare results. Alas I fear the subset of people who think 4SSS SansZKey is fun is too small for anyone to spend the time to create such a program.
To digress, perhaps you have read below where I am considering starting a YouTube channel on 4SSS SansZKey. Nothing certain yet, but if I do, may I have your permission to refer to you as one of my mentors?
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Master Chi-Yuen, sir, with all respect I am very uneasy with this weeks assignment. It is not my place to judge another’s work especially without comment and especially with only a single data point.
• The difficulty of the hand (1 = hardest) 5
• The strength of the player (1 = strongest) 5 My apology to happyharvey0. I applaud his tenacity and assume he is a much stronger player now, six years later.
• The quality of presentation (1 = best) 3
• Overall score (1 = best) 4
•
I found a game on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVYWeFFq48
• The difficulty of the hand (1 = hardest) 5
• The strength of the player (1 = strongest) 4 Sekali lagi saya minta maaf kepada pengunggah
• The quality of presentation (1 = best) 3
• Overall score (1 = best) 4
Strange that you, Learned Master, should chose this week to have a look-see at the material available on YouTube to help folks further their abilities in 4SSS, because I have been thinking of starting a video journey with the hope of bringing more players into the fold of Sans ZKey.
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Excellent job, I look forward to seeing your video journey and quickly achieving Spider Solitaire awesomeness with only 25 letters of the alphabet 🙂
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Thank you Master Chi-Yuen. If indeed I should launch such an undertaking may I reference you and this blog?
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Of course you may 🙂
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