Thanks Gary for the help. Yes, you were a help because you made me think outside the box I was locked into. I examined several other deals and discovered that many of them had a similar scenario -- a move that was extraneous but only obvious in hindsight.
It then occurred to me that one card was usually moved more than necessary. This led to the conjecture that given a choice between moving a card that has been moved previously, and moving a card that hasn't been moved previously, that I should first choose the latter. Actually, this seems obvious if one is trying to find a short solution. Of course, there are instances where a card will need to be moved more than once, but that scenario can be addressed during backtracking.
So, I'm going to modify my solver to penalize multiple moves for the same card. (note: when a chain of cards are moved, only the highest ranking card will have its move count bumped.) I'll let you know if there's an improvement in the solutions found.
Thanks Again, Danny
--- In fc-solve-discuss_at_yahoogroups.com, "Gary Campbell" <gary_at_...> wrote:
>
> Iā€™m not sure how I would program detecting the futility of the alternate moving of the 3C. Sorry, but I donā€™t think Iā€™ve helped. -Gary
>
Received on Tue Oct 09 2012 - 08:38:39 IST