Somehow, my first response terminated or was sent prematurely. Sorry!!!
I modified my 8x4 FreeCell solver to handle 7x4 deals. I hope that I didn't
introduce any errors.
Here are my results for the first 32K MS deals distributed over seven
columns and using four free cells.
7x4 Deals Solved: 31,641
7x4 Deals Unsolvable: 356
7x4 Deals Intractable: 3 -- #15131, #16699, #18929
7x4 Execution Time: 22* solving as 8x4 deals (partly because of
Intractables)
Obviously, solving a range of 7x4 deals is more difficult (for my solver)
than solving a range of 8x4 deals.
>From: "wgreview" <wgreview_at_yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: fc-solve-discuss_at_yahoogroups.com
>To: fc-solve-discuss_at_yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Solvers with more or less than eight columns
>Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 03:54:54 -0000
>
>
>
>Someone wrote to me yesterday saying they had played FC
>accidentally with seven columns instead of eight, and
>wondered how much lower the win rate was. This is one
>of the big unexplored areas in FC; it would be nice to
>have some solver data for all of the various combinations
>of columns and freecells. There is lots of data from human
>players at NetCELL's site (www.freecell.com). It would
>be nice to have some data from computer solvers. Seven
>columns seems a lot harder to me than eight, but that is
>probably a psychological barrier; NetCELL players seem to
>do pretty well. Anyone up to the task of modifying their
>solver? (I'd love to have FCPro modified too, to allow
>for play/recording/solving with varying numbers of columns).
>
>Michael Keller
>FreeCell FAQ
>
Received on Thu Dec 30 2004 - 12:34:37 IST