Showing posts with label solsuite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solsuite. Show all posts

Thursday, 10 September 2009

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. 

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

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.

Monday, 7 September 2009

Class Day Out but it won't count


Class Day is one of the very hardest patiences, and I just got it out. But I did it by replaying my most successful game and Solsuite will not count it for online statistics. Grrr. I think their policy is right. But ... Grrrr.

Any tips? Obviously be very lucky. But beyond that, there were a couple of times I avoided taking a card from a tableau, if the same card was coming up soon in the stock. (Yes, I cheated by looking ahead.) And wait to clear a space until you are happy with what will go in this pile. For example, when a Q is top of the wastepile can be a good choice towards the end, so that it doesn't matter if it gets buried.

By the way, on the redeal, I discovered I had missed the JD the first time round. Which meant that a 10D had not been played early. But this didn't hurt it coming out, and may have even been important to its success.

The game that comes out is 3105127855914.

Friday, 4 September 2009

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.)