Maverick Solitaire
An early form of Poker solitaire is actually a puzzle of sorts, one
which has been called Maverick solitaire (after its appearance on the
1950's/1960's Western T.V. show Maverick, in the first season episode Rope of Cards).
Twenty five cards are dealt from a shuffled 52-card deck. The
object is to divide the 25 cards into five groups of five cards so that
each is a pat hand in draw
poker (a hand which does not need to be drawn to). Maverick
Solitaire is well-known as a sucker bet, as the probability of success
with a random group of 25 cards would seem low, but is actually quite
high: the eponymous author of Maverick's Guide to Poker
estimates the odds to be at least 98 percent (he disallows four of a
kind). This is remarkably accurate: Mark Masten's computer
solver, allowing four of a kind,
solved about 98.1 percent of a random set of 1000 deals. Deals
with unique solutions are even less common than impossible ones: the
sample above had 19 impossible deals and only 8 with unique solutions.
The pat hands we need to consider are four of a kind, full house,
flush, and straight. The best place to start in
solving a problem in Maverick solitaire is to divide the cards into
suits, checking to see which suits have five or more cards, enough to
make a flush. When each suit has five or more cards (which
should happen in slightly over 50 percent of deals), it is often
possible to make four flushes, and then a fifth hand using the excess
cards over five in each suit. For example, if the suit
distribution is 7-6-6-6, any two cards from the long suit and one card
from each other suit can be selected in an attempt to make a full house
or straight. A card can be matched in six ways: as part of a
flush, as part of a straight, in a pair combined with another
three-of-a-kind, in three-of-a-kind combined with another pair, in
four-of-a-kind, or as the fifth card added to another
four-of-a-kind. Martin Gardner (see Bibliography) discussed
the game and showed an example of an unmatchable card, but such cards
are rare. The most common type of unsolvable deal seems to be a
hand with one or two four-card suits, with cards widely spread to make
straights difficult.
Maverick is not found very often in computer implementations, but there
is a version in Solitaire Virtuoso. Any two cards can be swapped
by clicking on them in succession; the program automatically detects
when the cards are arranged to that the five cards in each row form a
pat hand. We hope to eventually incorporate Mark Masten's
solver into the program, which might allow it to provide deals of
selected difficulty. Another method, not implemented yet, might
be to allow the player to select from various suit patterns (for
example 7-6-6-6 for easy deals, 7-7-7-4 for harder ones).
We will also eventually implement other forms of Poker solitaire.
Brown, Douglas -- The Key to Solitaire, Ottenheimer, 1966 (later reprinted as 150 Solitaire Games)
pp. 14-17 describe Maverick under the name Poker Solitaire
Gardner, Martin -- Mathematical Magic Show, Vintage, 1978, (Knopf, 1977), ISBN 0-394-72623-5
Chapter 7, "Playing Cards", pp.94-104
Maverick, Bret -- Maverick's Guide to Poker, Tuttle, 1994, ISBN 0-8048-3032-0
pp. 131-132 discuss Maverick Poker
Copyright ©2011 by Michael Keller.
All rights reserved. This file was revised on July 11, 2011.