Shlomi says:
"My use of Freecell Solver is a little different. I use it to make sure the
deal I am playing is solvable, regardless of whether the current position
is. Naturally, this is more of an issue with Simple Simon where about %20 of
the deals are not solvable (at least according to the heuristic used by
Freecell Solver), than with Freecell where almost all initial deals are."
We have found that among our users of FcPro, the most active use of a
Solver is to check while playing whether an intermediate position has been
reached that is winnable or impossible. As to the distinction vis-a-vis
Simple Simon, the "about 20%" non-solvable deals would also apply to
Freecell when played with only two instead of four freecells. However, as
to wheither this is an "issue", another way of putting it is to say that the
testing of any solver design can be more expeditiously done with a game
where there is a much higher percentage of unsolvable deals than with
four-freecell Freecell deals. This is why the testing of a Freecell solver
with four-freecell intermediate positions is more revealing than with
original deals. Intermedate positions are much more likely to be
unwinnable.
Of course, users of FcPro also use the solver to test original deals,
especially for playing with fewer than four freecells. And no doubt there
are some who regard the use of the solver for intermediate positions as
"cheating", as perhaps does Shlomi.
As to further progress with the FcPro integration, I was out of town
much of that past few weeks and unable to work on it. I'm back at it now,
and in separate discussion with Shlomi about one remaining issue.
Best regards, ---------------Adrian
Received on Sun Jun 23 2002 - 04:51:49 IDT