Thomas Warfield (Support)
Moderator
Username: Support
Post Number: 181
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 12:44 pm: | |
Goodsol Newsletter #59
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<http://www.goodsol.com>
New Pretty Good MahJongg Layouts
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<http://www.goodmj.com/pgmj/layouts.html>
There are three new Pretty Good MahJongg tile matching layouts available this month. Pretty Good MahJongg comes with 20 MahJongg tile matching layouts, and now there are a total of 12 more layouts you can download. Just go to <http://www.goodmj.com/pgmj/layouts.html> to download the new layouts. Run the installation and install into the same folder where Pretty Good MahJongg is installed. If you haven't yet downloaded Pretty Good MahJongg itself, you can download the trial version from <http://www.goodmj.com>.
Pretty Good Solitaire Tip
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One of the most important features of Pretty Good Solitaire is its automatic game saving feature. When you quit a game in progress, Pretty Good Solitaire will automatically save your position. When you play that particular game again, the game will replay all your moves up to the point where you left off. You can either continue playing or click on the new game button for a new game. The automatic game saving
feature can be turned off by clicking on the Options button on the main screen, then unchecking the GameSaving box.
You can ask any questions about Pretty Good Solitaire in our new Goodsol Solitaire Discussion Forum at <http://www.goodsol.net/forum>.
Featured Game - Diavolo
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Diavolo is an interesting and very difficult two deck Spider type game. Diavolo is similar to the popular game Rouge et Noir and may actually be the game from which Rouge et Noir derives.
Diavolo has a special way of building on the foundation piles. The leftmost two foundations begin with red Aces and are built up in color to Kings. The next two foundations begin with black Aces and are also built up in color. The rightmost four foundations, however, are not built up a card at a time at all. In these foundations, you must drop an entire 13-card sequence of cards. For the left two foundations,
these sequences must be headed with a red King, the last two a black King. These sequences must be built in the tableau and transferred to the foundations as a 13 card sequence when they are completely built.
There are nine tableau piles. At the start of the game, nine cards are dealt to the first pile, eight cards to the second, and so on down to one card to the last pile. Only the top card of each pile is face up. The tableau piles are built down by alternate color and groups of cards in sequence may be moved together. The remainder of the cards form the stock, which is turned over one card at a time to the waste pile. There are no redeals.
Diavolo is an extremely difficult game to win. The expected winning percentage of a good player is probably only about 1%. The best anyone has been able to do so far is 0.4% (see Diavolo's statistics at <http://www.goodsol.com/stats/games/diavolo.html>).
Usually the game ends when the stock pile runs out, and there are many cards left in the waste pile. To win, it is necessary to avoid having too many cards pile up in the waste, which means getting as many cards as possible into play.
The big decision that you are often faced with in Diavolo is whether to play a card up to the first four foundations or to leave it in the tableau for further building. Often there is no good answer as to which is best. In general, whatever can get more cards out of the waste pile is probably the best move.
Diavolo is one of the 500 games in Pretty Good Solitaire at <http://www.goodsol.com/pgs/index.html>.
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Thomas Warfield - Software Designer - support@goodsol.com
Anne Warfield - Order Fulfilment - orders@goodsol.com
©2003 Goodsol Development Inc.
Pretty Good Solitaire, Pretty Good MahJongg, FreeCell Wizard, Spider Wizard, and more. Visit us at <http://www.goodsol.com>.
You can subscribe to the Goodsol Newsletter by going to <http://www.goodsol.com/newsletter.html>. |