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How many different ways are there to win at the game of solitaire without cheating of course (original version played with the standard 52 card deck, non computerized)?

Question #121665. Asked by 29CoveRoad.
Last updated Jun 11 2021.

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Answer has 5 votes
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looney_tunes star
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Answer has 5 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
There are 52! (a bit over the number represented by an 8 and 67 zeroes) different starting arrangements for the cards. From Wikipedia: "For a 'standard' game of Klondike (of the form: Draw 3, Re-Deal Infinite, Win 52) the number of solvable games (assuming all cards are known) is between 82-91.5%. The number of unplayable games is 0.25% and the number of games that cannot be won is between 8.5-18%." (Klondike is the name of the game usually referred to as solitaire.) But there are often multiple options of moves that could lead to a final solution. The smallest number from these figures would be 82% of 52!, or roughly 65,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_%28solitaire%29#Odds_of_winning
link http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~afern/papers/solitaire.pdf


Response last updated by gtho4 on Jun 11 2021.
Jun 02 2011, 5:03 AM
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