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1117

Solitaire dealt a game where not a single move was possible. (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by aftli

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[–]Z0bie 20 points21 points ago

I feel that this would also suit /r/mildlyinfuriating

[–]ShivaNZ 4 points5 points ago

I had wondered if there was a subreddit for mildly annoying things

[–]agbullet 6 points7 points ago

just in time. I have something between my teeth that I can't reach.

[–]What_Mama_Dont_Know 48 points49 points ago

This happens to me all the time. I used to screencap them all but quit after 6 or so...

[–]aftli[S] 26 points27 points ago

Really? A lot of times I really thought (and was secretly hoping) it would happen, but it never did before this. I feel like the original (Win3.1/95/98/XP etc) solitaire was pretty easy, and it may have helped you along a bit. Windows Vista/7 Solitaire is unforgiving - I lose the vast majority of the time.

[–]Imxset21 30 points31 points ago

You should read The odds of Solitaire. The number of unsolvable games (like yours) is 0.025%. That's pretty fucking rare.

[–]decayingteeth 38 points39 points ago

Pair rare with company time to make it seldom.

[–]kkjdroid 14 points15 points ago

1/4000 games isn't very rare. I've seen stats posted here with 8000+ games played, which would mean that that person would be expected to find about 2 games of that kind.

[–]averyv 23 points24 points ago

...2 games? Out of 8 thousand? 8 thousand games of solitaire... Is not "rare"?

In what fucking universe...

[–]agbullet 17 points18 points ago

This one.

You know what's rare? Each time you shuffle a standard 52-card deck thoroughly and fairly, and then stop, there's a very, very good chance that no one in history has ever held in their hands an identical sequence of cards. Ever. Your sequence is 1 out of 52 factorial.

That's rare.

[–]averyv 15 points16 points ago

that's like saying "you know what's cold? 2 Kelvin. that's cold".

you know what else is cold? 2 degrees Fahrenheit. You know what else is cold? 20 degrees Fahrenheit. You get my point.

the number of people who will even play 4k games of solitaire has got to be very very low. This is, by any reasonable definition, a true rarity.

[–]agbullet 3 points4 points ago

I know... I was being facetious. :)

[–]akbc 1 point2 points ago

There's easily 4000 people playing solitaire at any one afternoon. One of them getting an unsolvable pair is not exactly rare.

[–]mojitoix 1 point2 points ago

I bet that 99% do it on a computer.

And at least 30% of them knows about reddit

I'm high and can't do math right now but I guess I was going somewhere here.

[–]averyv 0 points1 point ago

even when you put it like that, people who have seen this will be rare. it's just not a common event.

[–]named_theorem 0 points1 point ago

I dunno. If you sit down to play solitaire, then you might play four or five hands on average. Do that every day for two years or so, and you've got 4000 games right there. Even if you're a longtime casual player, one hand a day for eleven years will put you over the 4000 mark.

Not saying that this describes all Solitaire players, but there's probably a substantial number of longtime regular players or solitaire addicts who have hit 4000.

This is definitely rare enough to be Mildly Interesting (I sure enjoyed it) but it's common enough that many serious solitaire players will have come across the same situation. We'd even expect some players (like What_Mama_Dont_Know) to have come across it a few times more than average.

In comparison, the odds of encountering a shiny Pokémon is roughly one in 8000, and there's a whole subreddit dedicated to them.

[–]Viktour -1 points0 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCBvQX1TafY

[–]kkjdroid 0 points1 point ago

Well, with the millions upon millions of games that have been played...

[–]dijitalbus 4 points5 points ago

Ya I've played upwards of 12,000 (although maybe only 100 in the last 11 months! getting clean...) and have probably seen 4 or 5.

[–]cachinnate 0 points1 point ago

Oh my god, I'm an idiot.

[–]ghostofmybrain 2 points3 points ago

I thought that too, but then realized that when I was playing on Windows 3.1 I was too young to play draw three.

[–]mriparian 6 points7 points ago

I'm still too young for draw three.

[–]Nintendork64 10 points11 points ago

Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

[–]iamagainstit 10 points11 points ago

I tried to click the close button on the No More Moves message.

[–]skater8705 -5 points-4 points ago

haha same here lol

[–]einmalistkeinmal 2 points3 points ago

So the million dollar question - what is the exact probability of this happening?

[–]TavernHunter 11 points12 points ago

0.025%

[–]JayTerbs3 2 points3 points ago

This is too interesting for me, I must have a mundane life.

[–]seeingeyehamster 4 points5 points ago

fuck you, solitaire.

[–]seeingeyehamster 4 points5 points ago

i'm sorry i didn't mean it

[–]Freakazette 1 point2 points ago

This is why I only play one card.

[–]TavernHunter 1 point2 points ago

Yeah I used to play solitaire on my phone a lot (probably at least 20 games a day minimum) and this wasn't uncommon

[–]albinoalpacka[!] 1 point2 points ago

Allan, please add possible moves.

[–]Eist 1 point2 points ago

This is but one reason why FreeCell rules!

[–]Hippo_Kankles 0 points1 point ago

HAX

[–]emart 0 points1 point ago

Mine looks different. Is this the multi-player edition?

[–]Ashymoto 0 points1 point ago

You lose, loser.

[–]Deracination 0 points1 point ago

Fun fact: given a truly random shuffle, there likely have not ever bee two decks in the same order.

[–]Khalexus 0 points1 point ago

Is this possible in 1-draw Klondike or only 3-draw? Seems if the odds of this happening in 3-draw is 0.025%, the chance of it happening in 1-draw would be astronomically low - or even impossible. I dunno. I have a strong feeling it would not be possible, but anyone know for sure?

[–]named_theorem 1 point2 points ago

Odds are low, but it is possible. Here's one unplayable situation: the seven cards which are initially face-up are jacks and kings, while all tens, queens, and aces are hidden behind them.

[–]dassouki 0 points1 point ago

what are the odds of that?

[–]turnleftdale 0 points1 point ago

Thanks for sharing something so inane .

[–]3Jane_goes_to_Earth 0 points1 point ago

Return and try again!

[–]Clitaristocrat 0 points1 point ago

I didnt know people still played this game...

[–]Viend 0 points1 point ago

What happens if you press the return button?

[–]wankingwalrus 0 points1 point ago

Solitaire is fucking so stupid.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

i follow both this subreddit and r/mildlyinfuriating, and sometimes it's hard to figure out what gets posted to what until I look. I figured this would be in r/mildlyinfuriating.

[–]Hateblade 0 points1 point ago

If this were not possible, the game wouldn't be solitaire.

[–]yamiyam 0 points1 point ago

You should restart and try again

[–]derrida_n_shit 0 points1 point ago

Are you Bad Luck Bryan?

[–]theprizefight 0 points1 point ago

This prompted me to play some solitaire (Win7). Got this message twice in the past 30 minutes.

[–]NoGardE 1 point2 points ago

This is possible within the constraints of the software because the game of Klondike Solitaire is NP-complex. This means that it is impossible for a computer to determine, in a reasonable amount of run-time, whether a dealt game will be winnable, or even playable. This distinguishes Solitaire from Mancala, Checkers, or even Go, all of which are P-complex, AKA solvable in quick run-time.

[–]Deracination 1 point2 points ago

It's simple to determine within a reasonable run-time whether a dealt game will be playable. In fact, it just did it.

[–]NoGardE 0 points1 point ago

It can detect whether a move is possible. It can't detect, at time of dealing, whether a game is winnable, unless, of course, the game starts out unmovable.

[–]Deracination 0 points1 point ago

No, but it doesn't need to. It just needs to not deal where there are zero possible moves. Preferably, also more than one or two.

[–]NoGardE -1 points0 points ago

Well, ideally, a computer game should never be able to construct an "unwinnable" scenario. To define that for the realm of Klondike Solitaire, that would mean it could look at a the stack which is the randomized deck, notice the card order, and immediately say "nope, need to reshuffle, that game can't be won, maybe not even begun." The latter is possible to prevent, so MS should reprogram. The former can't be calculated.

[–]aftli[S] 1 point2 points ago

There is a Solitaire game for Android which purports to only deal winnable games. I haven't tried it yet.

[–]PossesseDCoW 1 point2 points ago

It probably just serves a winnable game from its servers instead of computing them on the fly.

[–]aftli[S] 1 point2 points ago

It doesn't have the Internet access permission, so it isn't getting them remotely. I did try it, it's single card draw so I suppose that's a ton easier to compute.

[–]PossesseDCoW 1 point2 points ago

Interesting. I'm still skeptical that they are able to compute the games. They might have a bunch of games stored locally on the device.

[–]aftli[S] 1 point2 points ago

Yup, that's my theory as well.

[–]eIhefe -1 points0 points ago

Fuck, I just lost two hours playing that game after I read this.

[–]ekbowler -1 points0 points ago

Misread the title as Movie. Dear god I was so afraid that someone was trying to make a movie out of solitaire.

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