The chain on my original message was getting very long and we jumped
off-topic some time back. So, I changed the subject line to start a new
message chain. I hope this is acceptable to you!
There are lots of people out there who are more informed than I about
the FreeCell community. However, I've visited my share of sites on
FreeCell and its rules.
First, some definitions and history. Atomic moves are where only one
card is moved at a time. A meta-move is where multiple cards are moved
at once. The original MS FreeCell limited how empty columns were used
during meta-moves. Later, many FreeCell games/solvers allowed supermoves
-- meta-moves that go beyond MS FreeCell and take full advantage of all
empty columns. Your move (18) is a supermove.
It was up to a particular FreeCell's developer to decide on whether or
not supermoves were implemented. Besides MS FreeCell and FcPro, I
haven't tried any of the other FreeCell games. FcPro provides an option
selection for supermoves. If you disable supermoves in FcPro, then it
mimics MS FreeCell in its solvers that implement meta-moves. I don't
remember which FreeCell solvers implemented supermoves. My solver
generates atomic moves only.
Bottom line: I think it's perfectly acceptable for your solver to
generate supermoves as in (18). You just need to include this
information when you share solutions with others. Like when you publish
your solver's solutions to all MS32K deals.
All of what I shared above, about the different types of FreeCell moves,
came from what I learned at Michael Keller's excellent web site on
FreeCell. There is a lot of information there -- along with solutions to
a number of the MS32K deals. At least one listed deal has a supermove in
its solution.
Michael Keller's web site is:
http://home.earthlink.net/~fomalhaut/freecell.html . It lists deal
#1195233675 as probably the easiest of all. My solver did it in 12 moves.
FYI: Your moves (2&3) could also be 27 17, in that order. Your moves
(13&14) could also be 68 18, in that order. By ordering the moves in
this fashion, you could (theoretically) move more cards with the same
number of moves, free cells, and empty columns. Something to consider.
Have fun running all MS32K deals. I'd be interested in knowing which
deals were the most difficult in terms of number of moves required.
Regards, Danny Jones
WKRfresno_at_aol.com wrote:
> Several of the MS32K are solvable in 21 moves. My solver has spent
> much time
> looking for deals with shorter solutions on a 1gHz Intel that averages 11
> games each hour; that's 4 months of continuous grinding to examine all
> 32000.
>
> But take a look at this one. ("-2" means 2 cards move)
>
> 11853, 4 freecells
>
> 1 . C6 7 f 11. SK 4 f
> 2 . SJ 1 2 12. C7 6 h
> 3 . -2 2 7 13. -2 1 6
> 4 . D3 2 h 14. -3 6 8
> 5 . S7 8 f 15. ST 5 f
> 6 . S8 8 f 16. DT 5 7
> 7 . D7 1 3 17. DJ 6 f
> 8 . C9 8 1 18. -4 7 2
> 9 . -2 3 2 19. CT 7 5
> 10. S8 f 3
>
> Now look at move 18. With two empty columns and a single open
> freecell, four
> cards move from a column to an empty column. The MS version of freecell
> doesn't permit that move. So does the freecell community consider this
> "solution"
> to be acceptable?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill Raymond
Received on Tue Oct 14 2003 - 17:04:30 IST