[Leica] Re: Solitaire

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Mar 3, 2007, at 12:58 AM, Marc wrote:

> You Mac guys are probably deprived of
> this wonderous accessory, but those of who use
> IBM Windows gear get an inbuilt Solitaire program
> -- Klondike, for those who are specialists, and,  
> yes, I wish they gave us Canfield, a more subtle
> game, especially if you play it
> double-decked.  Play a thousand games and keep a
> game-by-game score.  The house always
> wins.


Solitaire was one of the earliest shareware programs for the Mac. A  
version by Michael Casteel, written before 1992, runs on just about  
every Mac made including the latest versions. It is one of the  
greatest time wasters ever created. I personally have played  
thousands of games of Klondike, Canfield, and Golf. In Klondike I win  
about one game every seven and a half tries and manage to place an  
average of 16 cards. By casino rules this would give me a slight  
profit, about enough for a couple of drinks every night.

Mac users who want to fritter away their computer time can download a  
number of solitaire programs from www.versiontracker.com. Currently  
most iMacs and MacBooks come with a few games preloaded.

Casinos welcome system players since they generally lose in the long  
run. But they definitely don't like winners. A colleague of mine many  
years ago was Edward Thorpe, the mathematician who figured out the  
first card counting system to beat Blackjack. He was banned from the  
casinos and the rules of the game were changed to make it more  
difficult to win.

Larry Z