The ongoing question of 'bots'
Monzie
REGISTERED
I haven't been reading the Discussion Board for quite some time so I don't know if this subject has come up recently, but I just had a real world explanation of this idea that people who can solve a game in 36 seconds must be somehow 'cheating.' I used to play Free Cell on my PC with a touch screen and would regularly get the highest score, sometimes logging a time of less than 50 seconds. I even beat Bonnie Bonz on occasion. Well, my PC recently died and I had to begin playing on my MacBook with a touchpad. Now I never get the highest score. Not even close. Even if there are only three players. For me it's not about winning, so I keep playing, but as far as my real world experience goes, the 'magic' is not in bots but in playing on a machine with a touch screen. Once you have to use either a trackpad or a mouse, your time will never be as fast, no matter how good a player you are or how you work the super moves. It may be different for others, but that's how it worked out for me.
Comments
Your theory that the secret to speed on Green Felt is a touch screen seem correct to me. All the demonstration videos in the F.A.Q are on a touch screen. I suspect you need something bigger than a phone as well.
I got 9 seconds with a mouse on game 2121774882. There was absolutely no strategy or intelligence involved. I clicked the bases of the piles, and if none of the piles responded to super moves, I clicked cards in the free cells to move them back. I probably only saw 7 cards. I tried 10 tableaus before finding this game that this strategy worked on. I could have clicked twice as fast if I took it seriously. I'm also a relatively new player, having started FreeCell Oct 28, and played ~15 games of Double FreeCell before that, and about 7 hours of FreeCell in total. So maybe FreeCell is easier than everyone thinks?
In regular games, without using this absurd strategy that usually fails, I get 30-60 sec on 40% of levels, and 60 sec - 5 minutes on another 40%. I'm usually not the first place, but I've only noticed one player faster than me on average (he takes about half Bonnie's time). I only look at cards when I get stuck, and at least half my moves come about because a super move discovered them for me. A significant part of my play is clicking blindly before I can see what is going on. I would not classify my play as intelligent or well-practiced.
Hey Monzie,
I play on a 2015 MacBook Pro. I do best when i play soberish
BonnieBonz
@Bonz2580, imagine what you could do with a touch screen!