What makes Solitaire so addicting in the first place? Maybe it’s that constant quest to win, to beat the odds and to see that dazzling display of cards bouncing around your screen upon your glorious victory. That may be easier said than done though. As anyone who has ever played Solitaire will tell you, beating the game isn’t as simple as it might seem.
But certainly beating Solitaire can’t be too hard for science to figure out. Wrong! Fancy-pants mathematicians will tell you that it’s one of the “embarrassments of applied mathematics” that very little is actually understood about the standard Klondike Solitaire. Even something as simple as just figuring out the odds of winning is elusive since mathematicians are unable to get a handle on how many winning hands are even possible. They guesstimate it’s between 80%-90%, but how many of us are really only losing 10% of the time?!)
You’d think that considering science has already cracked way more difficult games like Monopoly, understanding Solitaire would be a walk in the park. That’s really not the case though, as beating Solitaire continues to be a source of mystery for scientists, mathematicians, and average Joes alike. But maybe that’s a good thing. If we knew how to beat Solitaire, maybe it wouldn’t be so addicting anymore, and what would be the fun in that!
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