Continuing on from last week.

We deal another row of ten cards. Let’ see what the players have to offer:

Text version:

(five) 3c-2s-As-2s

(four) 7c-6c-5d-6d

(five) 2h-4c

(four) 9c-3d

(four) 9s-2c

(three) Kc-Td

(three) Jd-Js

(three) 7d-6s-5s-7s

(three) 9s-8h

(four) Kh-9c

Cards in stock = 40, Cool Mates = 9, Stooges = 3

White: We can get a turnover in Column 4 or Column 5.

Brown: Turning over Column 9 with “ij,if” is more flexible since it does not commit to building 4-3 or 3-2 off-suit.

Red: Goodie, we get more Spades! We have 7-6-5 in the single column, even though they are out of order. Pity about the duplicated Twos and Nines.

Blue: There is a turnover in column 2: “bg,bg,bi”. We also build in-suit with 6-5 of diamonds.

Purple: But that blocks Column 9. We need to turnover column 9 first – then we can turn over column 2.

Dark Green: Don’t forget Column 1. We can build in-suit with 4-3 of Clubs as well as turnover a card.

Black: There is another hidden option. First shift the Eight of Hearts to column 10, then we can turnover column 2 without blocking column 9.

Dark Blue: Red has good intentions – it is always wise to keep in mind the big picture. Unfortunately, the Spade suit has a long way to go. Now is not the time to focus on building a complete suit. I think it is wise to start by computing minimum guaranteed turnovers. I see at least three turnovers.

Green: I can’t improve on three. Now it’s a matter of working out the correct order of moves.

Yellow: I like Brown’s suggestion of Column 9. Only three more cards and we get an empty column!

Orange: BROWN IS SUS. Of the thirteen ranks, Queen is the only one unseen. Surely it is wiser to play “fg” first to free a King before turning over Column 9. Otherwise, we would lose a turnover if a Q appears.

Pink: DARK GREEN IS ALSO SUS because he wants to expose an Ace. Unlike Texas Holdem, Aces and Kings are not your friends in this game.

As usual, the team drops at least one S-bomb as soon as we reach a non-trivial decision.

• Which plan do you like the best? Feel free to suggest your own plan if you don’t like any of the above suggestions.
• You can nominate any of the coloured tokens to execute the plan. You can also nominate yourself – but then you must give a specific move sequence!

Returning back to the game …

Bart has suggested db, since only column 8 has three face-down cards and “hasn’t been kinged”.

Schistocerca went in more detail, proposing to take all three turnovers at once with the move sequence “db,ia,gh” – conditional on the assumption that no useful cards turn up and causing us to reconsider. Let’s see what Inaslov’s Random Number generator has in store for us:

(move db), Nine of clubs.

Black: The captain has decided to take multiple turnovers, presumably to speed up the game – unless we get some useful cards. I agree. The opening round doesn’t leave much opportunity for an expert player to shine.

(move ia), Nine of spades

Dark Green: Our second bad card in a row.

Red: rot13(Sbe shpx’f fnxr)! You don’t need to vent your frustration at every bad card!

(move gh) Jack of diamonds

Dark Blue: I was thinking perhaps ca instead of ia. The advantage is apparent if the next two cards were Ace and Three. Admittedly the chances of that are remote. But we cannot ignore the fact column 8 … I mean column 9 has fewer face-down cards than column 3.

Purple steals a chance to glare at Dark Blue while White is not looking. At least nobody dropped the S-bomb despite three bad cards in a row, so the team has done something right.

Pink: But the captain has decided otherwise and we must respect his decision. In any case our only legal move is to deal a new row of cards.

Yellow: Unless any of the Stooges wants to move the Ace of Spades onto the Two of Hearts. No takers? Okay let’s deal!

White gives Blue the honor of dealing the next round of cards. He is pleased to see everyone has had a chance to contribute something to the opening round.

Yellow: “I know there are some Stooges among us – but what is the purpose of this rule?”

Red: “They are in cahoots with Mr Inaslov – who wants to destroy us from within. Inaslov knows that every time we botch a game of Spider Solitaire then our morale will diminish. Eventually we will perform badly at our daily tasks and things will quickly turn to rot13(fuvg)”

Pink: “Sneaky fellow that Inaslov. I never like those filthy Russians …”

White: “Hey! There’s no need for that kind of discrimination. We should be grateful that none of us are judged by the colour of our skin.”

Damn, thought Yellow. I guess I’m not using Sludge as a nickname for Brown any time soon.

Brown: “Does that mean we either need to win this Spider Solitaire hand or eject all the Stooges?”

Green: “That’s correct. In other words, there are two ways to win.”

Orange: “But there are also two ways to lose. If we eliminate too many Cool Mates so they no longer have a majority against the Stooges then it’s game over. Therefore, random guessing is not a viable strategy.”

Dark Blue: “Wait a minute. This sounds very interesting but how do I know that Red and Orange are not Stooges?”

Purple: “Maybe GREEN IS SUS. Making a notation error on the fourth move – come on! It’s probably a coded message to send signals to another Stooge.”

Dark Green: “Why does everyone pick on me?”

Blue: “Purple was talking about Green, not Dark Green”

White was deep in thought. Although not the technically strongest player, he was well-known for his Project Management smarts among the White-skin community. This was easily one of the most dysfunctional teams he had ever managed. At this rate they would be lucky to string together three turnovers without someone dropping the S-bomb that rhymes with “bus”. On second thoughts, this could be exactly what White was hoping for – if he was one of the Three Stooges.

Black: “Again we digress. We should concentrate on the cards in front of us. In any case it is not our job to eject players. That’s the responsibility of our team captain – Bart Wright, Schistocerca Americana, or whoever happens to be reading Spider GM’s blog on the day.”

TO BE CONTINUED …

Continuing from last week …

Blue moves “hi” revealing the Seven of Diamonds.

Purple moves “bg” exposing the Seven of Clubs. He is pleased to see another in-suit build and there are still four turnovers.

Yellow makes the next trivial decision: “fb”, the only in-suit build – and exposing the King of Clubs. Dark Green lets out an audible sigh.

The Cool Mates are off to a good start with the first three moves being in-suit builds, but now we are faced with a non-trivial decision.  The King of Clubs was perhaps not the greatest, but at least none of the Three Stooges have perpetrated any Fajor Muck-ups. Let’s see what suggestions the players have to offer:

Red: 65 of Spades onto the Seven.

Dark Blue: I see nothing wrong with that. In the early stages of the game, the obvious move is often the best move.

Pink: I like “ia”, hoping to clear out column 9.

Dark Green: “ca” is also possible.

Blue: DARK GREEN IS SUS! Column 3 has five face-down cards but Column 9 has only four. We all know the importance of getting empty columns early.

Brown: DARK GREEN IS NOT SUS. My chess tutor once said it is important to identify all candidate moves before evaluating any of them. Full credit to Dark Green for suggesting a move that nobody else had mentioned so far.

White: We can also move the Five of Diamonds onto the 7-6 of Clubs.

Yellow: Or “db”. The notation is pretty handy for anyone who knows the first ten letters of the alphabet or better 😊

Purple: Yes, “db” is reasonable. Even if the next card is an Eight we don’t lose a turnover because we still have a spare Seven in Column 8.

Orange: That’s a good point. Whereas if we shifted either Deuce onto the Three, we would lose a turn-over if the next card is a Four of any suit.

Green: I vote Red’s option of “hg”. Using the same logic, we don’t lose a turnover (unless we get two Eights). That also starts digging in a column with only four face-down cards.

Black: You mean “gh”. In any case, we need some good cards soon. Only an A,3,4,8,T,Q will give us at least one extra turnover. Slightly under 50% I think, but the math is left as an exercise for Purple 😊

Over to you. What move would you recommend here?

Bart wanted to Mulligan. Schistocerca wanted to play.  With the vote 1-1, I decided to flip a coin as a tie-breaker: Heads we mulligan, tails we play. If the coin somehow balances on its side, then I get to choose.

Heads it is – we take the Mulligan.

Before we count minimum guaranteed turnovers, in-suit builds or move any cards, I would like you to meet the players.

There are a number of strong players in this group but some of the others are a bit rot13(fuvg) – and that’s being generous. Fortunately, the readers (Bart, Schistocerca Americana, and anyone else who joins in mid-game) play the role of captain. Barring trivial decisions, these players can only make suggestions and it’s up to the captain(s) to evaluate these suggestions and choose the optimal line of play – or suggest their own 😊

“Two of Spades onto the Three of Clubs” squeals Yellow.

“YELLOW IS SUS!” shouts Dark Green.

“I was joking,” replies Yellow. “Of course, we all know that if I rot13(shpx) up the first move then I would get ejected faster than you can say At First Blush Our Brilliant But Incredibly Nasty Sudoku Elicits Rude Word From Simon! (7)”

Confused looks from half the team (who have obviously never heard of Cracking The Cryptic).

“We have four guaranteed turnovers,” says Pink. “Dark Purple, you’re the mathematician. Is that better or worse than average?”

“The expected number of turnovers is 3.97,” says Dark Purple. “Therefore 4 is above average. But you can also crunch the numbers and say the median number of turnovers should be between 4 and 5, therefore 4 is worse than average”.

“But we digress,” replies Black. “The difference is small. I would be more swayed by other factors, such as number of in-suit builds, number of Aces and Kings … and don’t forget to calculate outs i.e. probability of getting a good card and increasing our minimum guaranteed tur-.”

“Obviously we start with <hi>” says Blue.

Everyone agrees except Yellow and Pink. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long for the team to teach Yellow/Pink the standard notation for moves with columns represented by letters a-j reading from left to right.

Blue gets the honor of making the first move. He shifts the Ace of Spades onto the Deuce of the same suit, revealing the …

“I hope it’s not a King,” says Dark Green.

“<sarcasm> always the cheery one </sarcasm>” says Red.

To be continued . . .