I recently rediscovered the ‘joys? of the card game Solitaire. I remember there to be a beauty in its simplicity. Solitaire is not loud. It is not flashy.
Turn card over. Place card, move stack, red, black, red, black.
King, queen, jack, et-al. Simple, beautiful.
Ma and Pa Rush, like many parents I am sure, showed us Rushlings how to play the game of Solitaire to help ensure their own sanity. Once learned, Solitaire was a game we kids could play by ourselves without having to bother our parents. It was a perfect game for rainy days when we couldn’t go outside to destroy the yard. Solitaire was a great game to play to wind us down after we roamed the streets. I think we learned Solitaire (and the card game of War) before we entered Kindergarten.
When I had time to kill and was by myself, I turned to Solitaire. I did this even through my college years. Then as girls entered the picture Solitaire vanished from my radar . . . like I said, until recently. While I have used computers since 1985 and Personal Computers with Windows based programming since about 1990 and have known there’s a Solitaire game there you can play on screen, I pretty much ignored it.
About a month ago I opened up the program at home while the boys were bathing in another room six feet away. I started playing. And playing and playing. No more turning cards over, just click and go . . . you can even play ‘Vegas? style games — either one or three draw.
And, it is with the Vegas style games that I kinda? got hooked. Whenever the boys went in for a bath, I ‘watched? them from the office as I tried to beat the ‘casino? in Solitaire. The month flew by. I ‘won? nothing. As a matter of fact, anytime soon I expect some computer-mob goon to knock on my door and threaten the integrity of my skeletal structure if I don’t pay up.
You cannot win. I cannot win. Nobody can win this computer Solitaire game. After a month of losing and observing card patterns I have come to a dirty little conclusion. The danged thing is fixed. It’s rigged. There is no way cards turn up in real life as they do on this program.
It’s a conspiracy.
In real life the odds of turning up four of anything in the opening seven cards is rare. Not so with the computer game. In real life a bunch of, say, sixes are not stacked one atop the other, under a five. It could happen in the computer world. In real life, you can throw away the deck of cards if you don’t like what is happening. And, while you ‘could? throw out your computer after a bad hand, it would be a rather expensive endeavor.
My obsession with the game grew. I had to win. I had to find a way. I played and played. I let the boys turn into prunes as they sat in the lukewarm, then cold bath water. There had to be a way — all the losing was hurting my psyche. Was it God sending me a message? I imagined the Big Guy talking to me, ‘Don, you dolt — you can never win when you gamble.?
And, yet, I turned away from God and turned on the computer and selected my Vegas style selection — draw three.
You don’t understand: I had to win. And, the more I played the more desperate I became. My luck had to turn, it had to!
It didn’t, so I began to scheme.
I clicked on the program and found it was written by a dude named Wes Cherry and it has been a part of the Microsoft world since about 1991. I ‘Googled? his name.
Let me say this, Wes sounds like a real peach of a guy. And, besides being a computer geek, he is none too smart (just like me). Seems he let his game go to Bill Gates? Microsoft company for a song. Wes? game is on nearly every stinking PC in the world and he doesn’t get any royalties. He’s also a vegetarian and from reading interviews with him, he considers himself quite the comedian.
I spent time searching the worldwide web finding out what I could about Wes and his computer Solitaire game. And, since I didn’t like the way he came off in those interviews and because I had to win, I found a way to cheat. I can now beat him and his stupid computer game! Ha!
While I hear a voice from somewhere saying, ‘Cheaters never prosper,? I still feel no remorse. As a matter of fact, I’ll share the cheater’s way with any who ask.
That’ll teach ’em for rigging the game I used to love.
Tell your cheatin? columnist, Don, a thing or two by e-mail: dontrushmedon@aol.com