It’s official: after achieving victory on the Four-Suit version of Spider Solitaire sans rot13(haqb), with one impostor trying to rot13(shpx) things up at every opportunity I have decided to award both Bart Wright and Schistocerca Americana the title of International Master. It’s a bit of a misnomer in that we don’t get to travel all over the world to play in tournaments and prove we can mix it with the best – but I will stick with the IM title because it is considered the next level below GM and both players certainly displayed an extremely high level of skill. The other reason for the IM title is because it allows Spider GM to showcase himself at his brilliant worst. If you would like to guess the punchline before reading on, I have inserted the usual spoiler blocker.
In Chess, all titles are obtained by playing in enough tournaments and getting a sufficiently high score against decent opposition. Players can achieve “norms” in individual tournaments and you need enough norms to prove you didn’t get lucky in a single tournament. Your rating also needs to be sufficiently high. The good news is you don’t lose your title after a dip in your rating (or a string of bad tournaments), so you keep your title for life – save for something incredibly stupid, such as an arbiter finding compromising images of Stockfish recommending the best move on your mobile phone. This is fair enough: if there was no guarantee of keeping your title there would be much less incentive to achieve it in the first place. A GM title implies that your ability/talent is enough to mix it with the world’s best, provided you are willing to put in the time and effort and life doesn’t get in the way. An IM title is pretty much the same thing except “the next level down”. Then you get Federation Master titles and of course you can also add a W-hook (using the Scrabble vernacular) for female players. Hence WGM, WIM and so on.
Unfortunately, IM Schistocerca Americana is a bit of a mouthful even for somebody who recently composed a work-related rap song to the tune of Million Voices by Otto Knows. Therefore, he gets the indignity of being renamed IM Bug. And Bart Wright suffers an even worse fate:
“Do we have to do this?” asks the Dumb Bunny. Meanwhile the Eagle has no cause for complaint as she gracefully soars across the air.
“It’s good exercise,” I reply. Even a Spider Solitaire tragic like me has to get out once in a while.
I sit on a rock, giving myself a brief rest as the rest of the gang catches up. Ninja Monkey does a quick head-count and confirms I haven’t lost any of my students.
“If you judge this fish by its ability to climb a mountain it will live its whole life believing it is stupid,” quips the Smart 65,83,83.
“You’re not helping!” growls the lion. The long trek has clearly taken its toll and even the Bad Idea Bears are not in the mood for jokes. I allow a few minutes break for everyone. We have only another 400 metres to go.
“Are we there yet?”
I turn to the Sand Griper.
“Okay, to make this trip a bit more entertaining I will let you play a game called 20 questions.”
The Sand Griper perks up – not something I see every day.
“The rules are simple,” I say. “You can ask as many questions as you like – except ARE WE THERE YET can only be used twenty times”.
The Sand Griper returns to being his usual grumpy self. Apparently he’s also not in the mood for jokes.
Finally I see a wooden sign and everyone soon reaches the top of the mountain, including the stockfish.
We immediately enter a tunnel. We follow the path and soon find ourselves at a large Games Room. All the animals marvel at the immense variety of board and card games, ranging from the prosaic Snakes and Ladders to the ever-popular Die Siedler von Catan or the ethereal strategic complexity of Risk. Not surprisingly the usual suspects are keen for a game of Texas Holdem after a long trek up the mountain.
“This is different,” says the Stockfish.
Stockfish is looking at a chessboard, except there is something unusual about the Black pieces.
“White has a large advantage” says the letter Alpha.
“Not so fast,” says the Dumb Bunny. “Black only needs to capture the King to win, but White has to capture everything.”
“I say White is completely winning,” replies the letter Zero.
The Eagle notices something unusual about the adjacent Backgammon board: one of the Green dice has the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,5 instead of the usual 1,2,3,4,5,6.
“Oooh look!,” I squeal. “My favourite game!”
Even better – the cards are already dealt, sparing me the arduous task of setting up the start position.
The Wise Snail seems pleased with the initial position. There are four guaranteed turnovers and two guaranteed in-suit builds.
“Jack of Clubs onto the Queen,” says the Elephant. “It’s in-suit and we also have a spare Queen.”
“Well done,” I reply. “You’re learning fast – no wait, I think this game could be rigged.”
“Why is the game rigged?” asks the Eagle. “Yes, there are two exposed Aces but …”,
“My favourite card!” squeals the letter Alpha. Clearly, he is new to the game. But from what I’ve heard these Letters and Numbers are capable of learning a new game with only four hours of self-training.
“But you have taught us many times the initial position is a poor indicator of whether a game will be easy or difficult,” continues the Eagle. “Besides you have four guaranteed turnovers and two in-suit builds.”
“There are other indicators,” I reply. “Remember the backgammon board with the faulty Green Dice, and what about the chessboard with unequal armies? If that’s not rigged then I’m challenging RIGGED whenever somebody plays it in Scrabble!”
“Look at this!” squeals Minnie Mouse. “Texas Holdem is also rigged. Take the Queen of Spades from the deck. Hold the back of the card to your nose. It should be blurry. Focus as though you are looking through the image into the distance. Very slowly move the card away from your face until the letter Q appears …”
Meanwhile the Bad Idea Bears are engaged in a fierce battle of Snakes and Ladders. They eventually realise that every square between 83 and 88 (inclusive) contains a snake and no ladder reaches a number higher than 88.
“So does that mean every single game here is rigged?” asks the Eagle.
“I will assert with 95% confidence every game is rigged, including Spider Solitaire,” I reply. “Welcome to Peak Stupid. But at least we know the game is rigged before moving a single c-”
“But that’s outrageous!” says the Eagle. “I refuse to play”.
“I know you are one of my top students but I want you to understand carefully: I have no problem with the game being “rigged” if the player knows in advance the cards are not properly shuffled. Think of it as an extra challenge – we already know it is possible to beat four-suit Spider Solitaire without boop if the cards are properly shuffled.”
It takes some convincing, but my students eventually agree to play the game out.
< several moves later >
Round 1: three Kings appear simultaneously
Round 2: A very awkward Q84KA84Q20 with lots of evens.
Round 3: three Threes
Round 4: four Fours
Round 5: at least I didn’t draw five Fives. But three Sevens and three Tens are awkward.
“You’re right,” says the Eagle. “You correctly predicted the game would be rigged. I’m not sure whether trips and quads in every round is a true indicator of difficulty and we haven’t even considered the permutation of unseen cards in the tableau but it is apparent someone did put in the effort to rig the cards”.
“Despite our best efforts we couldn’t win without the help of boop,” I say. “We obtained two empty columns at one stage and came close to completing the Heart suit. Pity that both Jack-of-Hearts were hiding behind two Kings in Column Four though.”
Hang on, I think to myself. Stockfish’s fishbowl has somehow moved right by a good half-a-meter when nobody was paying attention. I soon figure out this mischief was due to Ninja Monkey (thanks to his extremely fast metabolism and lightning reflexes he was able to avoid suspicion for quite a while). But at least I’ve worked out how the stockfish was able to ascend the mountain without violating the laws of physics.
That thing is hideous, Parson Gotti thought to himself.
The Dwagon Spidew eyes Parson warily and he returns the favour. It probably came from the city of Ruhan (in some dark corner of the Universe where HYGIENE is apparently not allowed in Scrabble). At least Parson wouldn’t have to engage in physical combat. All he has to do is arrange two decks of cards into eight complete suits from Ace to King.
“So that means no illegal moves, keep a distance of at least 1.5 metres and the Dwagon Spidew won’t mess with you,” said Parson.
“And most important of all, no swearing,” added the Monkey.
At least the monkey is on my side, thought Parson. How useful a mentor the Monkey is remains to be seen. Parson deals 54 cards onto the tableau and leaves the remaining 50 in the stock.
Parson glances at a number of skeletons and human skulls strewn over the floor. The Dwagon Spidew’s modus operandi is pretty simple, he thought. Simply wait for the human victims to perish from exhaustion, hunger, frustration, PTSD, whatever, or all of the above if they can’t finish the game.
Parson examines the starting layout. He counts only three guaranteed turnovers. Years of experience taught him the average guaranteed turnovers should be closer to four not three. But at least two of them would come from in-suit builds. And there were no Aces or Kings.
Parson shifts the Seven of Hearts exposing an Eight of Clubs, then shifts the Eight of Hearts (column 2) exposing the Four of Clubs, a second bad card.
“Oh for Boop’s sake!” mutters Parson.
The Eight of Hearts magically reverts to its original position in Column 2 and the Four of Clubs is face-down again.
“Wait – what is this boop?”
The Seven of Hearts returns to its original location in Column 10 and the Eight of Clubs is face-down again. Parson had returned to the starting position.
“So every time I say boop the game will boop a move – unless I am already at the starting position.”
The Dwagon Spidew nods in agreement. Alas, half the human population (including Parson) had difficulty pronouncing a certain word rhyming with “One Two”. And a vaccine for the dreaded Dysarthria virus wasn’t happening any time soon.
Parson moves the other Eight of Hearts on to the Nine of the same suit. At last a good card – the Three of Hearts, which can now play onto an off-suit Four in column 8.
Parson hears an ominous rumbling sound in the distance. On second thoughts, it was only his stomach telling him it’s time to eat.
“I couldn’t boil an egg to save my life,” grumbles Parson. He had long regretted living with his parents for 30 years.
At this point a hard-boiled egg magically pops out of nowhere and Parson eagerly grabs it with both hands. Phew, one less thing to worry about. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.
At length, Parson is able to secure his first empty column (not surprisingly with the considerable help of boop). His curiosity is piqued by the following thought: “how can I estimate my chances of winning without boop if I were a much better player than I currently am?”. But back to the task at hand. How to defeat the Dwagon Spidew?
Edifying Thoughts of a Spider Solitaire Addict 