I play multiple games every day, but on my electronic tablet, not with a pack of cards as Gran did. In fact, I often think of her whilst I'm playing and wonder what she would think of the computerised game. I can finish, win or lose, a game in the time it took her to lay out the tableau with her cards.
The other evening, I thought of her especially, because I would have loved to be able to boast to her about a game I played. I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with the game, but for those who aren't it's quite simple Here is a diagram of the layout:
The four foundations (light rectangles in the upper right of the figure) are built up by suit from Ace (low in this game) to King, and the tableau piles can be built down by alternate colours. Every face-up card in a partial pile, or a complete pile, can be moved, as a unit, to another talon pile on the basis of their highest card. Any empty piles can be filled with a King, or a pile of cards with a King. The aim of the game is to build up four stacks of cards starting with Ace and ending with King, all of the same suit, on one of the four foundations, at which time the player would have won. I turn three cards at once to the talon, with no limit on passes through the pack.
Normally, I move two or three cards from the original layout, then start going through the pack. If I'm lucky, after several passes through the pack, I might win the game. The other night, however, was different and why I wish Gran was still alive so I could tell her about it.
I managed to turn up every card in the tableau before touching the pack, and I won the game before needing a second pass through the pack. Given that using the three card turn over, no limit on passes through the pack rule that I use there are 8×1067, or an 8 followed by 67 zeros, possible hands, of which 79% are mathematically winnable, I wonder what the odds were of my winning that game in the fashion I did? When I've actually calculated my winning percentage, it's in the range of 10%, and I have probably played tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of games in my life and I have never before won a game like that!
Rest in peace, Gran. Memory Eternal!
I am told that my grandfather used to say that you should always carry a pack of cards with you, especially when camping or such. That way, if you got lost in the woods, all you had to take out the pack of cards and start playing solitaire, and someone would be along directly to tell you that you're missing a move, or that you should move this card instead of that one.
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