Seahaven Towers

Anonymous

A few questions for the Green Felt Guys- I have been at Seahaven Towers junkie for many years. I play, on average, four games a day. After the game of the day, when I finish a game and the score comes up, it will say something like "you beat the game, 2 out of 28". However, it may only show eight top scores and all of them are for that day. I seem to remember that it used to show scores from various dates. Did I imagine this? Also, since I have been playing for so long, is it reasonable to think that I may occasionally run across a game I've already played in the past? Would I then see my user name and score from a previous date?

Lastly, if you know- is it mathematically possible to beat every hand of Towers? More than a fast time, I like the challenge of finishing every game. It sometimes takes me a while, but I am able to beat most games I play. Then there are those that no matter how many times I try, I just can't figure it out. Are there are hands that can't be beat or hands I just can't beat? I've always wondered but my ego was afraid to ask!

I absolutely love Green Felt, I wouldn't change a thing! Thanks so much!!

david

Tonka1 wrote:

After the game of the day, when I finish a game and the score comes up, it will say something like "you beat the game, 2 out of 28". However, it may only show eight top scores and all of them are for that day.

We don't show anonymous scores in the high score table, but we count them in the ranking. I admit that's kind of inconsistent.

I seem to remember that it used to show scores from various dates. Did I imagine this?

No, you did not. We changed the way we did this about a year ago. It used to be that we'd search our database for games that other people had played but that you had not. That worked fine until we had so many people that the search started taking too long. It became the number one load on our database.

So we changed it to the technique you see now: once an hour we choose "threads" of games that everyone plays. So if you have 2 computers and you go to the site and click "new game" on each computer, the games that show up will be the same, even though it looks random. That way people playing at about the same time will see games that others have played, so it makes you feel like there are other people on the site.

The new way is much simpler and doesn't put undue load on the database.

Also, since I have been playing for so long, is it reasonable to think that I may occasionally run across a game I've already played in the past? Would I then see my user name and score from a previous date?

You would definitely see your user name and score from the previous date. We use a 32 bit number to represent our shuffles which means we have 4,294,967,295 different shuffles. So you each time you have a 1 in 4 trillion chance at seeing an old game of yours.

That also explains why we do the "threads" technique I explained above: even if we have 333 million games in our database (we do), that's still a pretty small chance that you'd happen across a game that anyone else had ever played.

Lastly, if you know- is it mathematically possible to beat every hand of Towers? More than a fast time, I like the challenge of finishing every game. It sometimes takes me a while, but I am able to beat most games I play. Then there are those that no matter how many times I try, I just can't figure it out. Are there are hands that can't be beat or hands I just can't beat? I've always wondered but my ego was afraid to ask!

Well, it's unlikely you can finish all the hands we can represent. Say you live to be 100 years old and finish an entire Seahaven game every second of your life, from birth to death (no sleeping, no breaks). That's 100 years × 365 days/year × 24 hours/day × 60 minutes/hour × 60 seconds/minute × 1 game/second: 3,153,600,000 games. That's still 1,141,367,295 games short.

I absolutely love Green Felt, I wouldn't change a thing! Thanks so much!!

Thanks so much, we love to hear it!

-David