“Twenty Twenty Two Gonna Be Great Year!” shrieks Ninja Monkey.
“How so?” asks the Wise Snail.
“Twenty Twenty Two – My Year! Year of Monkey!”
“You don’t have to jump up and down all the time,” gripes the Sand Griper. “It’s annoying.”
“Besides,” roars the Tiger, “you have no evidence to back up your claim. According to the Chinese Zodiac, it’s MY year. The formula for Tiger years is 12x + 6 for any whole number x. Substitute x=168 and you get 2022. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.”
“Tiger is right,” says the Elephant. “I may not be the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to Phil Hellmuth’s menagerie of poker animal types, but I can remember every sign of the Zodiac and which year corresponds to which animal.”
“Not so fast,” says the Ox. “Chinese New Year starts on February not January, so I still get to enjoy approximately 30 more days of fame.”
“To add insult to injury,” adds the rot13(fzneg nff), “the formula for Monkey years is 12x for any whole number x. That means you are the maximum possible distance in either direction from one of your good years – therefore 2022 is the worst possible year for the monkey”
“Monkey don’t care, Monkey don’t care! Monkey invent his own Zodiac!”
“But you can’t invent something out of the blue just because a few unpleasant facts got in the way of a really good story” says the Eagle.
Ninja Monkey presents his own version of events: there are exactly 337 animals in today’s meeting. Each animal represents a different species – if we conveniently ignore the fact Ninja Monkey brought his GF along. Ninja Monkey assigned himself the year 0, his GF the year 1 and the rest of the animals different years in no particular order. How convenient it was that 337 happened to be a prime divisor of 2022. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
“The monkey raises a valid point,” says the Wise Snail. “If the Zodiac caters for only 12 animals, then the vast majority of us miss out altogether. Monkey’s suggestion is much fairer even if it is not based on accepted tradition”.
With nobody able to rebut the Wise Snail’s statement, everybody stews in awkward silence for a few minutes. Finally Bad Idea Bear #1 comes up with a resolution: The Eagle would deal ten random hands and Ninja Monkey would have to win at least one game without rot13(haqb) using his Improved Random Move Algorithm. If the Monkey could achieve this then the new Zodiac is in. Otherwise, the Monkey would have to reluctantly accept the Tiger’s version of events and wait another six years.
Nobody else has anything better to offer, and for once a suggestion from a Bad Idea Bear gets unanimous agreement. At least there is no BIB #2 around to come up with something even worse. So, without further ado Let The Games Begin!
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
“I thought things had started well,” sighs the Wise Snail, who is Ninja Monkey’s best friend.
Game 4
“Some promising signs there,” sneers the Tiger. “Too bad in the end!”
<<Several hands later>>
“Okay fine”, says the Monkey as he slams the cards onto the ground after conceding the last hand. “Year of the Tiger it is!”
Edifying Thoughts of a Spider Solitaire Addict 