Steve Brown’s Game: Round 2(3)

After a brief period of joy, it is now time to bid farewell to our only hole and we must choose between a number of depressing options. Still, our game state isn’t exactly in Limbo – at least our prospects are much better than the start of Round 1.

There are several alternatives to choose from:

• Turning over column 6 will probably get the vote of Captain Obvious.
• We can obtain a turnover plus an in-suit build in column 3. This motif comes up extremely often in practice – and will no doubt be familiar to experienced players.
• Maybe it is better to turnover column 3, but forego the in-suit build. This is because we probably wish to shift the As in column 2 – but having an off-suit 2c-As in column 7 would be very undesirable since we would then need two good cards to recover an empty column.
• We can obtain a turnover plus in-suit build in column 2, but that would commit us to shifting the Ace of Spades – costing a turnover if we reveal an Ace.

The observant reader may have noticed we have forfeited the option of building in-suit with the Qs-Js. An interesting question to ponder is: if we were allowed to perform the supermove “hd”, would it be beneficial? We get an extra in-suit build at the expense of putting more junk on column 4. Since column 4 doesn’t contain a King maybe it is worth hoping for turnovers in that column if things go well.

However, a hidden danger is that if column 4 turns into a junk pile then there is a long-term danger of a Queen shortage. If we played “hd” (assuming it was legal) then it would be less of a problem since we would be burying a Jack along with two Queens. It’s a minor defect in our overall position, but you never know when the word “minor” turns out to be a typo and the correct spelling was F-U-N-D-A-M-E-N-T-A-L all along. Therefore, I would play “hd”, if it were legal.

Steve elects to turnover column 6. In hindsight, Steve thinks column 3 was better because there are more Threes unseen than Kings. Also, threats of one-hole-no-card are starting to percolate so turning over all cards in column 6 isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be.

• Move: fg → 9c
• Move: be → deal

And while we’re here, we may as well milk maximum value from any possible Limbo references. Spider Solitaire is a game full of traps, where the player is often tricked into believing everything is going smoothly – until it isn’t. With that out of the way, here’s looking forward to Round 3!