I have been playing Microsoft’s TriPeaks solitaire for many years. It’s a great game when you just have a few minutes to kill, as it is untimed and can be played in a minute or two.
I play on the random setting, so some of the games are easy and others not so much! And some, no matter how I try, I just can’t get to work out. If you’re not familiar with the game, here’s the starting layout:
The idea is to clear the board by playing cards that are either one higher or one lower than card from your reserve pile. The Ace seen here is the starting card, I could play either a two, if there was one on the board, or either of the Kings. When I play a King, I can then play one of the Queens, then another King, then another Queen, etc., etc. As you uncover the cards below, they turn up and are then available for play. Suits don’t matter at all. If one of the deals defeats you, all is not lost, you have 2 more “lives” before the game is over.
The fun part is that you can redo each deal as many times as you want, trying different moves to see if you can clear the board. Some boards, however, just seem impossible which is the point at which you give up one of your lives and move on to a new deal.
In the screen shot above, I have a score of 268,500 with both of my additional lives left and I have cleared 15 boards. Years ago I would have considered this to be a fairly good score, but I have gotten better at the game. I began to hit 400,000, then even the occasional 700,000 before I would call it quits and give up on ever solving a game. Since it’s a random deal, I figure there have to be some deals that are just not doable and after ten tries or so I would just move on.
Early this summer I hit 800,000 with both of my extra lives left. Ah ha, I thought, I should be able to get to 1,000,000 with no problem. That, of course, is when I hit a wall and no matter what I did, I could not get past 960,000. Well, I couldn’t let that stand and have been working all summer to reach 1,000,000 (spending lots of time in waiting rooms is a great help).
So here I present to you the proof I finally hit my goal:
No matter how I’ve tried, I haven’t been able to get rid of that pesky Six. When I turn up that last card from my reserve pile, the game is over as it is not a Five or Seven. It’s been a good run, but I think it’s time to turn to some other game when I’m sitting in the waiting room later today!
Tuples and Attributes 