Happy New Game – Round 4 Summary

Moves can be found here

Not much to say really. We had the classic “can’t get started problem”. We need an empty column to gain an empty column. No turnovers, a few in-suit builds. Bart’s gamble of sacrificing an in-suit build did not pay off. We started with four exposed Eights and a 7-6-5-4-3-2-A of Hearts, but after dealing 10 cards, three Sevens appeared simultaneously, including one in column 2. Now we needed two Eights to recover an empty column but three of the four Eights became unavailable. This “requirements shift” phenomenon is typical in Spider Solitaire when 10 cards appear simultaneously instead of sequentially. I assume the same phenomenon is recognised by hardened software engineers 😊

Incidentally if we had chosen to shift the Eight of Hearts in column 3 (instead of the Seven) into the space in column 2 then we could have turned over a card in column 6. This is left as an exercise for the reader (Hint: Go back to the start position of round 4, then insert the Eight of Hearts underneath the Seven of Hearts, so that columns 2/3 read as follows: 8765432A7/8K3).

Nevertheless, the game is far from over. We have one suit removed and I have won plenty of games despite no turnovers in a single round. Assuming at least one card is unseen, the time to start worrying is when you have no turnovers in the LAST round 😉