Knave's Dial, but it will 40 minutes later!

Well how about that?   I got out a fresh game so this one will count.  

This game that comes out is number 0210843428856.

I'm going to give you more or less complete instructions for getting this one out.   Take every card you can with a few exceptions.   On the original deal, don't take the last Black Queen you can, or the Black 6, and don't take the first ones that come out on the redeal either.   Also, don't take the last Red 5 or Red King on the first deal.    

I did work this out with a lot of undoing, but it might be (I haven't checked) that you could work this all out analytically on the first run through.   After the first deal is complete the game is open, even though it is not played as such.   It may be that the moves I didn't make (after in fact making them and then unmaking them) could have been seen that way the first time round. 

I suspect this game might be get outable more often than I thought.  I had only three failed games after my last success, which was why it took so little time to get it out.    And I didn't play those through, just gave them up quickly.   If it does come out often, it will be by the kind of analysis (or undoing) that I did this time. 

Quite happy about this one.   I feel like I understand the patience a lot better now, and it may not be completely unbearable to play again. 

Knave's Dial out, but it won't count (either)

I got Knave's Dial out, another ghastly patience and the tenth most rarely solved game in Solsuite.   Like I did with Class Day, I went back to my best unsuccessful game, to see if it came out.    Since it only had 4 cards unplaced, I was not amazed that it did in fact come out.   In fact I just needed to avoid taking one card, (which I did by undoing, in case you think I have some kind of sixth sense), and it came out.   

The game number that comes out is 3163897827515. 

Class Day Out And it Will Count

Phew. I got Class Day out. This time on a random deal so it will count. I got a good score the first time round (about 26 cards not put up yet.) Then a bit of replaying to fiddle around with when cards from the tableau are put up, in order to get four cards dealt from the waste pile at the right time.

One more little hint that might have helped. Sometimes don't play cards from the waste when you can delay them and then play up a card to the tableau. If this gets you a space, then having some nice cards in the tableau will clear the next space sooner. This helps you get at good cards that you can't play immediately. I.e. if you get a space sooner, it might let you save a key card in the tableau instead of having it deeply buried in the waste.

This is a game I am happy not to play more of. But if I've counted right, at time of writing I've now got out 14 of the 20 most difficult games in Solsuite.

The deal that came out was number 2625269170176.

I got Idle Aces Out

I got Idle Aces out in Solsuite. This is another one of the hardest games, or at least the least solved, or at least the least solved by people who publish their results on line. The game number I got out is 3021478448855.

This was only my 41st game, so it is indeed not as hard as others (like the awful Japanese Patience.) I used to hate this patience but I think I was being too clever. You can switch between piles you have built up. E.g. if you have got a rising pile up to 7 and a descending pile down to 8, you can switch cards between them to any number you want. But doing this more than a little seems to be counterproductive in the long run.

I did restart a few times until I had a good start. But the good start is more important for the second deal than the first. The deal started something like A A K, which is important because on the redeal it's vital that the first card is a terminal card. So even though I could have played the aces, don't! Then you can use a little bit of cleverness. On the redeal, say I got Q underneath the K, I don't need to play it. Then I perhaps get a J and that needn't be played either. Because eventually the J can be played, then the Q, then the K.

Anyway, I got it out. Don't need to play it again unless I want to.

How to play Japanese Solitaire

Don't.

But if you have to, here are some tips.

Japanese Solitaire is a patience game invented by and released by the Solsuite program. Hilariously, they give the odds as being 1 in 15, but I got it out on my 1400th try. As I write it's the sixth most difficult game of hundreds in the program. Only 12 people have solved it even once and published their result online. That number is now 13, as I got it out last night.

Most of those 1400 tries lasted a second or two. That's one of my tips. Bail out quickly if you need to. Here are my other tips.

1. You need to be very lucky all the way through, so give up if you are not. If you are not meeting the conditions, feel free to bail out and get another game going.
2. Look to get about 3 cards out in the first few rows. And ones which don't block you in the future. E.g. if you get two aces out but you have buried one of their twos, don't bother.
3. At the end of the first deal (i.e. 0 out of 4 redeals) you should have a positive score.
4. By the end of the third deal (2 of 4 redeals) my cards had crossed over, i.e. the cards going up had hit the same number as the card going down.
5. I "cheated" on this ghastly game to avoid playing 1400 more. What I mean is, I did a few undos to randomise the next redeal. When I ran through the first time, it didn't come out. Undoing and then choosing NOT to put a card up which would in fact go seems to randomise the next redeal. So even though it's to your disadvantage, the gain can outweigh the pain. The second or third time I did that, it worked.

If you have Solsuite and you want to get this dratted patience out, here's the game number which I know works. 1550537509600. Glad to be of service. (I think Solsuite doesn't let you publish statistics on games you put in the number for, so playing that game won't get you on the leaderboard, sorry.)

99.999%

The chance that a random game of Freecell (one of the patience/solitaire games that comes with Windows) is solvable is about 99.999%.

It always gives me great pleasure, surely more than it merits, that this number arises for real. It's not made up or hyperbole. An extensive experimental investigation of a million deals had only 14 not solvable. To five significant digits, that's 99.999%.

99.999% of the time that you come across the number 99.999%, somebody has just said it for effect. But 0.001% of the time, it's the result of real study to find the number. And this is that one in a million time. Ok, one in a hundred thousand time.