Can solitaire always be beat???

consider the following deal:

all red aces buried deep in the columns
all columns headed by red cards
every 3rd card in the deck red.

there are enough red cards for such a game:

28 on the table
24 in the deck

7 red upturned on table
2 red aces elsewhere on table
8 reds in deck

= 17

So you'd play this game and only ever see red, hence there is at least 1 possible deal that you cannot win.

I believe that's half the answer to your question

rob <not motivated enough to do his real work>

solitare rocks!! Apparently it is _too_ complicated for mathematics to model or for computers to play sucessfully

(8% win by comp vs 15% win by researcher)

ha, that would be a cool research project, playing solitare!

http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_7_5_99.html