Simple Simon (solitaire)
Encyclopedia
Simple Simon is a Patience
game played with a regular 52 cards deck (4
suits of 13 cards each without Jokers). It became somewhat popular being
featured in some computerized collections of Solitaire card games, but its
origins possibly predate its implementation as a computerized game.
A card can be placed on any card on the top of a column whose rank is greater
than it by one (with no cards that can be placed above an Ace). A sequence of
cards, decrementing in rank and of the same suit, can be moved as one. An
empty column can be filled by any card. A sequence of cards from the king down to
the Ace - all of the same suit - can be moved to the foundations. The object of
the game is to place all four suits in the foundations.
enough empty columns or parent cards to place intermediate components and
sub-sequences of cards on. This is similar to FreeCell
only with the
individual components of the sequence being the same-suit sub-sequences
rather than individual cards as in FreeCell. Note that some implementations
of Simple Simon, require the player to do all the moving of the individual
components by himself.
Solitaire
games, was adapted to solve Simple Simon, by its primary
developer, Shlomi Fish, back in September, 2001. Fish initially tried implementing the solver using
individual Simple Simon moves, but that ended up causing the program to
check many states without a visible end. So instead, he opted for a scheme
in which every sequence of moves conducted by the solver ended up in either
clearing a column, moving a card on top of a card of the same suit, or (more
rarely) moving a column to the foundations. Implementing this strategy turned
out to be sufficient for solving many games, and so it was kept.
The statistics presented by the solver when run over a range of 4000 random games show that about 85% of the games are solvable, with the median
of the number of solver iterations for them being 59. Most of the rest were
unsolvable by the solver (but not necessarily by a human player), with a
median of 8 iterations. In both cases, over 95% of the boards were solved
or reported unsolvable by the solver after less than 1000 iterations.
Stephan Kulow has commented that this is "what makes the game a joy: either it's impossible to solve and you see it in the first moves or it's solvable and you only have to find the best route."
A programmer called Michael Mann added another type of move to
Freecell Solver which placed cards above a parent of a different suit. This
reportedly increased the percentage of games that were solvable by the solver
to well over 90%. This change was not incorporated into the mainline Freecell
Solver, because it increases the necessary time and iterations to solve many
games considerably.
On 30 May 2009 a more up-to-date version of Freecell Solver (with more bug-fixes and other modifications) was used to collect statistics on the first 5,000 PySol Simple Simon boards. Its results were that 3,702 of the 5,000 games (or 74%) were shown to be solvable by the solver, while 2,787 out of them were solved with 100 solver iterations or less. Of the boards that the solver could not solve, it gave up after 100 iterations or less at roughly 89.50% of them. The solutions that were generated by the solver for the solvable boards were validated as correct by Games-Solitaire-Verify, a CPAN
distribution written in Perl
5 for such tasks.
On 9 July 2009 Fish updated the solver to contain Michael Mann's additional move again and re-run Freecell Solver on the first 5,000 PySol Simple Simon games. This time the results were that the solver was able to solve 4,533 (or 90%) of the deals, and generally reached a conclusion within 100 moves. The solutions to the solved deals were also verified to be correct using Games-Solitaire-Verify. Freecell Solver's Simple Simon-solving method is not exhaustive and may result in false negatives. As a result, it is possible that a larger percentage of the games are solvable.
Patience (game)
Patience is a genre of tabletop games, consisting of card games that can be played by a single player. Patience games can also be played in a multiplayer fashion....
game played with a regular 52 cards deck (4
suits of 13 cards each without Jokers). It became somewhat popular being
featured in some computerized collections of Solitaire card games, but its
origins possibly predate its implementation as a computerized game.
Rules
At the beginning of the play the cards are dealt all facing the player, starting from 3 columns of 8 cards each, and then 7 columns with 7, 6, and so forth cards until 1.A card can be placed on any card on the top of a column whose rank is greater
than it by one (with no cards that can be placed above an Ace). A sequence of
cards, decrementing in rank and of the same suit, can be moved as one. An
empty column can be filled by any card. A sequence of cards from the king down to
the Ace - all of the same suit - can be moved to the foundations. The object of
the game is to place all four suits in the foundations.
Strategy
A mixed-suit sequence of cards can be moved to a different location, givenenough empty columns or parent cards to place intermediate components and
sub-sequences of cards on. This is similar to FreeCell
FreeCell
FreeCell is a solitaire-based card game played with a 52-card standard deck. It is fundamentally different from most solitaire games in that nearly all deals can be solved...
only with the
individual components of the sequence being the same-suit sub-sequences
rather than individual cards as in FreeCell. Note that some implementations
of Simple Simon, require the player to do all the moving of the individual
components by himself.
Statistics and analysis
Freecell Solver, an automated solver for various CardSolitaire
Solitaire
Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself or with other people. The solitaire card game Klondike is often known as simply Solitaire....
games, was adapted to solve Simple Simon, by its primary
developer, Shlomi Fish, back in September, 2001. Fish initially tried implementing the solver using
individual Simple Simon moves, but that ended up causing the program to
check many states without a visible end. So instead, he opted for a scheme
in which every sequence of moves conducted by the solver ended up in either
clearing a column, moving a card on top of a card of the same suit, or (more
rarely) moving a column to the foundations. Implementing this strategy turned
out to be sufficient for solving many games, and so it was kept.
The statistics presented by the solver when run over a range of 4000 random games show that about 85% of the games are solvable, with the median
of the number of solver iterations for them being 59. Most of the rest were
unsolvable by the solver (but not necessarily by a human player), with a
median of 8 iterations. In both cases, over 95% of the boards were solved
or reported unsolvable by the solver after less than 1000 iterations.
Stephan Kulow has commented that this is "what makes the game a joy: either it's impossible to solve and you see it in the first moves or it's solvable and you only have to find the best route."
A programmer called Michael Mann added another type of move to
Freecell Solver which placed cards above a parent of a different suit. This
reportedly increased the percentage of games that were solvable by the solver
to well over 90%. This change was not incorporated into the mainline Freecell
Solver, because it increases the necessary time and iterations to solve many
games considerably.
On 30 May 2009 a more up-to-date version of Freecell Solver (with more bug-fixes and other modifications) was used to collect statistics on the first 5,000 PySol Simple Simon boards. Its results were that 3,702 of the 5,000 games (or 74%) were shown to be solvable by the solver, while 2,787 out of them were solved with 100 solver iterations or less. Of the boards that the solver could not solve, it gave up after 100 iterations or less at roughly 89.50% of them. The solutions that were generated by the solver for the solvable boards were validated as correct by Games-Solitaire-Verify, a CPAN
CPAN
CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, is an archive of nearly 100,000 modules of software written in Perl, as well as documentation for it. It has a presence on the World Wide Web at and is mirrored worldwide at more than 200 locations...
distribution written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
5 for such tasks.
On 9 July 2009 Fish updated the solver to contain Michael Mann's additional move again and re-run Freecell Solver on the first 5,000 PySol Simple Simon games. This time the results were that the solver was able to solve 4,533 (or 90%) of the deals, and generally reached a conclusion within 100 moves. The solutions to the solved deals were also verified to be correct using Games-Solitaire-Verify. Freecell Solver's Simple Simon-solving method is not exhaustive and may result in false negatives. As a result, it is possible that a larger percentage of the games are solvable.