Baker's Game is a

patience or forbearance, is the ability to endure difficult or undesired long-term circumstances. Patience involves perseverance or tolerance in the face of delay, provocation, or stress without responding negatively, such as reacting with disrespect ...

solitaire Solitaire may refer to: Film and television *'' Le Solitaire'', a 1987 French film * ''Solitaire'' (1991 film), a Canadian drama film * ''Solitaire'' (2008 film), a drama film *''Solitaire'', 2016 Lebanese comedy film with Bassam Kousa *"Solit ...

card game A card game is any game that uses playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, whether the cards are of a traditional design or specifically created for the game (proprietary). Countless card games exist, including famil ...

similar to

FreeCell FreeCell is a solitaire card game played using the standard 52-card deck. It is fundamentally different from most solitaire games in that very few deals are unsolvable, and all cards are dealt face-up from the beginning of the game. Microsoft h ...

. It predates FreeCell, and differs from it only in the fact that sequences are built by suit, instead of by alternate color. This makes the game more difficult to complete successfully.

History

One of the oldest ancestors of Baker's Game is

Eight Off Eight Off is a patience or solitaire card game, named after its employment of eight cells, played with one deck of playing cards. The object of the game is to move all the cards into the foundations. It served as a partial inspiration for and is ...

. In the June 1968 edition of ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'',

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

described in his "Mathematical Games" column a game by C. L. Baker, that is now known as Baker's Game. Gardner wrote "The game was taught to Baker by his father, who in turn learned it from an Englishman during the 1920s". The description of Baker's Game in the "Mathematical Games" column inspired Paul Alfille to create

and he coded it for the

PLATO Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

educational computer system, which ended up becoming more popular than Baker's Game.

Rules

(Adapted from the FreeCell's article Rules.) Construction and layout: *One standard 52-card deck is used. *There are four open

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life * Cellphone, a phone connected to a cellular network * Clandestine cell, a penetration-resistant form of a secret or outlawed organization * Electrochemical cell, a de ...

s and four open foundations. (Some alternate rules use between one and ten cells.) *The entire deck is dealt out left to right into eight

cascade Cascade, or Cascading may refer to: Science and technology Science * Air shower (physics), a cascade (particle shower) of subatomic particles and ionized nuclei ** Particle shower, a cascade of secondary particles produced as the result of a high ...

s, four of which comprise seven cards and four of which comprise six. (Some alternate rules will use between four and ten cascades.) Building during play: *The top card of each cascade begins a

tableau Tableau (French for 'little table' literally, also used to mean 'picture'; : tableaux or, rarely, tableaus) may refer to: Arts * ''Tableau'', a series of four paintings by Piet Mondrian titled '' Tableau I'' through to ''Tableau IV'' * '' Tableau ...

. *Tableau must be built down by the same

suit A suit, also called a lounge suit, business suit, dress suit, or formal suit, is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles generally worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt su ...

. *Foundations are built up by suit. Moves: *Any cell card or top card of any cascade may be moved to build on a tableau, or moved to an empty cell, an empty cascade, or its foundation (to make the game harder, only put kings on an empty cascade spot). *Complete or partial tableaus may be moved to build on existing tableaus, or moved to empty cascades, by recursively placing and removing cards through intermediate locations. While computer implementations often show this motion, players using physical decks typically move the tableau at once. Victory: *The game is won after all cards are moved in ascending number by suit to their foundation piles. Variant: To make the game even more difficult, allow only kings to be placed on an empty tableau spot.

Statistics

Freecell Solver, a solver for some variants of Patience game, including Baker's Game, was run on the first 10 million deals of Baker's Game with 4 reserve cells based on the Microsoft FreeCell deals, in order to collect statistics. The solver was run using a preset that guarantees an accurate verdict. Out of the 10 million deals, 7,431,962 were solvable (making for an average win rate of 74.3%), and the average number of moves required to solve was 107.5 moves (unoptimized).

References

{{Solitaire English card games Card games introduced in the 1920s Open packers Patience video games Single-deck patience card games

History

Rules

Statistics

See also

References