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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

AN ODD FACT FROM AN OBVIOUSLY WASTED LIFE

The classic solitaire game on my computer permits me to take back a move -- the "undo" functionality.  I have tried playing huge numbers of games both using and not using the undo capability.  My winning percentage is 16% both ways!  That strikes me as counterintuitive.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That's really interesting, as well as a nice break from your news about the sinister manouvres of the American right (and by the way, I think it's the very idea that one should register to vote that is crazy).
Perhaps given one's ability level, there are certain games that you can win and some that you'll never be able to. Or maybe using the 'undo' button makes you complacent about the possibility of fixing mistakes later, so that you don't play as well.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

But the game is so dead simple there is no strategy to it. It is like tic tac toe. That is what puizzles me.

Unknown said...

That's a good point. Maybe my second hypothesis would apply more to a Spider solitaire. I would go with the first then: given the cards that are dealt at the beginning of the game, there are some you win and some you lose. It is odd, though!