The rules of this game can be found in this video. My program won this game nearly 32% of the time.
I do not like the rule found in some sources, that removes the first face card to the end of the deck when no face cards were removed from the initial tableau. I consider this to be an unnecessary and incomplete solution to a rare problem, and therefore a needless complexity. Yes, it is true that this game cannot be won if the bottom card in the deck is not a face card (I assume the correction of this situation is the intended purpose of the rule). But, if none of the first 12 cards are face cards, there is a 30% chance that the last card in the deck is a face card anyway. And the odds that all 13 of these cards (the initial 12 and the last card in the deck) are not face cards, is less than 2%. Even worse, in order to win, you actually need the last two cards to be face cards (not just the last card), so 70% of the time the rule fails to achieve its intended purpose anyway!
I tested this game with and without the above rule, using the same one billion deals. The rule made very little difference (even less than what I expected): only about one game in 461 requires the rule in order to be won! So now I dislike the rule even more.
I also tested without any face card removal at all (including within the initial layout), which makes the game very difficult to win (1-in-591).
| Face Card Removal | Games Won | Win Rate % |
|---|---|---|
| At least once | 319,689,563 | 31.97 |
| Initial layout only | 317,519,131 | 31.75 |
| None | 1,693,166 | 0.17 |
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Last modified December 31, 2021
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