Are all the deals in FreeCell theoretically solvable?
Cuckley
REGISTERED
I get stumped occasionally. Was wondering if all the deals are in theory solvable and freecell. Thank you
Cuckley
REGISTERED
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Hi @Cuckley according to wiki, ‘It is estimated that 99.999% of possible deals are solvable’
Here’s a link to a previous Green Felt forum thread on this topic
https://forum.greenfelt.net/discussion/8655/freecell-game-752157795-unsolvable
It is very easy to compose an example of an unwinnable Free Cell hand. When Windows was shipped with the Free Cell game, it came with a package of (I believe) 30,000 hands, all of which were winnable. This led to the common belief that the game could always be won, even if it was sometimes very difficult. Nowadays it depends upon the game engine that is being used on a given online site. Some will use a fully random generator that will quite happily deal you an unwinnable hand. Others use the 'winnable set', although I suspect that these days it will be far larger than the original 30,000 hands.
In the original Free Cell distributed with Windows, if the user typed '-1' into the Game Number field, they would then be dealt an unwinnable hand. I believe that other versions used a variety of input values to return interesting hands.
IN the early 1990s I was playing a Windows Freecell (I think it was Windows NT) and on occasion would be unable to move any cards on the last deal/round of cards (hence unable to win). I now play greenfelt spider and never had that situation (although there have been times when an individual deal resulted in no movement).
I was able to stop playing freecell when I deinstalled it from my computer . Alas the deinstall option isn't available with the internet.
Oh, look... old spam! @jim and @david See @judgmenttreat 's comment above.