| Author |
Message |
Larry Dale (Lars)
Intermediate Solitaire Player
Username: Lars
Post Number: 27
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 10:59 am: | |
Out of the first 10 million game numbers in regular Freecell, 130 are supposed to be unsolvable ( but this does not include the Pretty Good Solitaire practice of allowing play back from the foundations to the tableau). A source has informed me that the following game numbers from the impossible 130 can be solved with the addition of play back from the foundations:
# 4266168, # 6332629, # 7334559, # 8381178
As a further aside, my source also revealed that play back from the foundations produced an additional 10 solvable games out of the first 10 million numbers for the equivalent of British Canister- zero freecells, kings only for empty columns. So adding this to my previous analysis of 9 solvable pseudo British Canister game numbers in the first 10 million without play back from the foundations brings the grand total to 19 out of 10 million or about 1 in 500,000. Still looks extremely unlikely of finding a British Canister winner in Pretty Good Solitaire. |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1343
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, December 30, 2007 - 12:55 pm: | |
Hi Larry, I'm confused. Your source tells you that 18 out of the first 10 million Freecells using B.C. rules are winnable. Couldn't he/she tell you what the numbers are? Or are they different from the numbers that PGS use? It would appear that these results were not achieved manually, so is software available that can do the job?
We hear frequently about the master number for the unshuffled deck, but surely there must be a large number of games that use only minor variations of it. I live in hope of finding one of these by chance whilst playing Bucket. Most players appear to have given up on B.C. so the chances of one of us finding such a number is lower than it should be. |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1347
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 4:18 am: | |
I think your data must be wrong anyway Larry. Egil from NOrWAY has managed to win British Canister 3 times from just 51 attempts. How lucky is that? |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1348
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 4:22 am: | |
Have you heard about the flightless Norwegian Eagle? It's so full of ---- it can't get off the ground. |
paul forsdick (Pondpaul)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Pondpaul
Post Number: 402
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 4:27 am: | |
Hi
being cynical about winning numbers for british canister I wonder if it was because the unshuffled deck Game 2147483647 was played a number of times.
this could be the only winning number but I will never use this one.
Paul |
Larry Dale (Lars)
Intermediate Solitaire Player
Username: Lars
Post Number: 28
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 8:01 am: | |
OK, here are the game numbers you can use to play the equivalent of British Canister in Pretty Good Solitaire ( be sure to play Freecell with kings only setting and don't use the freecells)
#1736945,#2004508,#2027038,#3944606,#4546103, #5429507,#6180548,#8889271,#9900809
The following numbers are the ones that need play back from the foundations:
#430808,#683912,#1171041,#1564113,#2633501, #2792483,#4692159,#5485548,#8793479,#9155558 So there are the 19 solvable out of the first 10 million game numbers. Some are fairly straightforward to solve, while others are more difficult. If you need solutions to any of these, just post an inquiry.
The software I used is a program called fc-solve, which can produce a list of solvable freecell games with different variations over any range of game numbers you want. But the game numbers only match those of the Microsoft/FCPro game numbers. Pretty Good Solitaire uses these numbers (up to 10 million) for the freecell games, but not for British Canister.
Larry |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1349
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 9:50 am: | |
Thanks Larry. That's as perfect an answer as we could possibly get. Perhaps Thomas could put us all out of our misery and use those same numbers for B.C. in the next update. Have you run the software to see how many Bucket wins are available?
Richard |
Larry Dale (Lars)
Intermediate Solitaire Player
Username: Lars
Post Number: 29
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 11:14 am: | |
Richard
Playing Freecell with Bucket rules (zero freecells, any card to empty column) yields about a 1 in 500 solving rate. Play back from the foundations as in Pretty Good Solitaire slightly improves these odds. But once again Bucket uses different game numbering from Microsoft/FCPro so the solving programs won't work.
Larry |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1351
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 - 11:38 am: | |
Thanks Larrysan. (I just googled the solver). My interest is purely academic. Your software is fascinating but a bit like buying a book of crossword puzzles with the answers filled in. I'm sure it is highly entertaining, but it's just not for me. Like everybody else, I'll be having a go at the numbers you've posted, and any more you care to contribute. Thanks.
Have a good New Year.
Richard. |
Larry Dale (Lars)
Intermediate Solitaire Player
Username: Lars
Post Number: 30
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 - 8:17 am: | |
Richard,
It really is no different than finding a winner posted in the Is It Winnable Forum. Yes , you can get actual solutions for these games, but you can also just get a list of solvable games. I try and solve all of these game numbers myself.
Larry |
Richard Mechen (Richardscotland)
Master Solitaire Player
Username: Richardscotland
Post Number: 1358
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 01, 2008 - 10:34 am: | |
Hi Larry, You're right of course. Having a winnable number is no guarantee that we can win it ourselves. It cuts out a lot of the more tedious aspect of playing endless unwinnables. |
Joe Don Kotrla-Chipps (Cellfree)
New Solitaire Player
Username: Cellfree
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - 8:39 pm: | |
I was doing great,...I got to 949 in a row, without a loss. Then I heard one game was unbeatable. By this time I thought I was too, so I played the "unbeatable game".
Game won, I lost......so final score: Wins-949 Lost-1
Undefeated no longer, but let's see someone beat 949 wins in a row.
"Cellfree" |
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