Connect Four – Bring It On!

Okay, I’ve submitted to temptation and finally downloaded the MobilityWare Spider Solitaire app even though it’s probably rigged – but only because I wanna try the daily challenges.

A daily challenge is a certain starting configuration that is guaranteed winnable. MobilityWare has several games (not just Spider) and solutions can be found by googling. Games include Freecell, Solitaire Draw 1, Solitaire Draw 3, Spider Suite 1, Spider Suite 2, Spider Suite 3, Crown, Tripeaks, Addiction. That’s quite a lot of variety, and I will admit I don’t even know the rules for some of these games. Although I thought the “Suite N” part was weird because it clearly should be “N suits” where N = 1,2,3 … no wait, there’s no solution for N=4?!?!?!?

If a solution is given, it means two players can play the hand corresponding to the same day and same game (e.g. Tripeaks, 5^th of February) and they are presumably guaranteed to get the same starting hand. If they didn’t get the same hand and wish to check the solution, at least one player would complain very quickly! However, since I can’t find a solution for any 4-suit Spider hand, it is mathematically possible (though unlikely) that two players can play DIFFERENT 4-suit Spider hands corresponding to the same day and they would be none the wiser unless one of ‘em specifically asks the other if they get matching hands.

NOTE: in some cases only partial solutions are given (because some games take longer than others) and you have to pay some $$$$ to get the full solution. But a partial solution is more than enough to confirm two players indeed get the same hands.

Assuming two different players do get the same 4-suit Spider hands, I can play these hands with reasonable expectations they would not be ridic hard – since I can’t see a game developer with rot13(fznyy qvpx flaqebzr) punishing random novices with insanely difficult hands if my win rate is too high, even if he or she works at Zynga (or an equivalent company).

I think a fun challenge would be Connect-Four. On every day of the month I either win or lose the hand corresponding to that day. Four wins/losses in a row, horizontally vertically or diagonally means I win/lose. For instance, if I remove all eight suits on days 5-13-21-29 then I achieve a winning Connect Four, unless I also achieve a losing Connect Four earlier (such as 9-10-11-12). The downside of playing Connect Four of course is if the game ends after 6 days, then I might have to wait a while before the next month! The screen shot below is for April 2023, coming soon to a place near u.

Ultimately, I am interested in playing all the daily challenges in April 2023. Can I expect to win most hands? Also, do hands get tougher as we approach the end of the month or is it roughly uniform difficulty?

Here are the hands for N-suit Spider Solitaire corresponding to 29 March, for N = 1,2,3,4. I would be interested if readers can confirm they get the same starting hands for N=1,2,3,4.

Of course the result I am really interested in is if you get the same hands for N = 1,2,3 but different hands for N=4. Then I would know something suspicious is going on!