vista spider solitaire helper

I play Vista spider 2 suits (intermediate). I have solved the first 516
games (and still going). I read somewhere that all 2 suit games are
solveable. I could not have solved the games without an Excel
spreadsheet that I developed that does not solve the games but helps you
solve them by keeping track of the cards you have managed to expose. I
only use it on the hard ones but without it I would have given up on
many. I would be happy to share it with anyone who is like me and is
determined to solve every game. It has an easy way to enter the cards.

Thats an amazing achievement (I'm only at 42%)

However, given that there are 104 cards and the (supposedly) random delivery
of them, aren't there hundreds of millions of possibilities?

I read somewhere that all the 4 suit games (advanced) are not
solvable but all the 2 suit games are. If this is true then the games
are not randomly dealt. I can easily construct a deck of cards where you
could not make a move on any of the 6 deals of the cards.::
::Reading that all the 2 suit games are solvable caused me to reinstall
the game and see if I could in fact solve all the 2 suit games I played.
In time I ran into a very hard game which lead to my constructing what I
call my “spider helper”. It is an Excel spreadsheet with some VBA code
behind it to make it easy to enter the cards that are exposed. Seeing
which stacks had not been exposed and then concentrating them lead me to
a solution for the game. Since it does take some work to enter the cards
I don’t use it on every game. I do not have a precise way to decide when
to use it (my mood comes into play). I would say, on average, I use the
helper on maybe one out of every 10 games but that is just a guess.::
::On your comment that you are at 42% - I assume you are playing 2
suits like me. When I was playing 2 suit spider on XP (where you can
only go back up to the last suit removal) I was at 40%. Of course in
spider on Vista you can back up all the way to the beginning which makes
it much easier to find a solution.::
::As I said, my helper does not solve the games but without it I would
have given up on some games. Before I built the helper I had one that
took me over 2000 moves to solve. Using the helper casts the game in a
new light.::

I just got Vista and played many games of spider solitaire. I completed
all games yet when I checked my statistics it said I had lost one game-
I hadn't. I reset the stats and started again. After about 60 games, it
again said I had lost one. I had completed all, but did back track. I
wondered if by back tracking before ending the game you lose a game,
even though I went to the end and solved it.
Can anyone help?

I have been able to backtrack many times in a game and when I
ultimately complete it it has always counted as a win. My stats are
now:
Games played 526
Games won 526
Win percentage 100%

Longest winning streak 526
Longest losings streak 0
Current streak 526

Thanks for that. There must be a glitch in mine because I have
definitely completed each game but twice now it has ruined my stats
without warning!
Good luck to you in your scoring

I assume you are playing in the Intermediate or Advanced option. I am
playing Intermediate but I can't believe the game performs differently
in any mode. I have never tried it in Beginner mode.

I am playing in the Intermediate option. It is mysterious that after the
fireworks, it just records a winning game as a loss inexplicably. But
thanks for the sympathy.

I don't see any fireworks in Vista spider. I used to see them in XP
spider. Are you sure you are playing Vista spider?

Now I see I did not have animation turned on hence no fireworks.

Vista spider plays fireworks when you win a game.

You might try resetting your numbers, perhaps that will zero it out and fix
the problem. Another possibility would be to uninstall and reinstall it.

Has anyone else noticed that spider solitare gives incorrect win rate
percentages? It's usually a percentage point lower than it should be.
For instance, right now it shows my win rate at 8% for the difficult
level. That's with 36 wins and 375 losses. However, 36 divided by 375 is
.096 which is well over 9%.

It is my first time on a spider solitaire sight. I was surprised to see that anyone would play 2 suits. Be persistent and try 4 suits, you don't win very often but when you do - what a thrill. I'm addicted, can't go to sleep unless I play at least a couple of games! Try it.

[bryan.schmidty]

Originally Posted by windowman59

Has anyone else noticed that spider solitare gives incorrect win rate
percentages? It's usually a percentage point lower than it should be.
For instance, right now it shows my win rate at 8% for the difficult
level. That's with 36 wins and 375 losses. However, 36 divided by 375 is
.096 which is well over 9%.

If you have 36 wins and 375 losses, you do not divide 36 into 375 to get your win rate. You divide 36 into your total number of games played which is 36+375=411. 36/411 is roughly 8%.

Of all the glitches in Spider Solitaire, math is not one of them.