Serpent Poker Patience.
This is a "problem" variety of the above game introduced by Ernest Bergholt. In the preceding game,
the cards are dealt "blind"—that is to say, when we lay down any given card, we are in ignorance of those that are to follow.
In "Serpent Poker Patience," the twenty-five cards are dealt, in fixed order, face upwards, and are all known to the player before he begins to lay them out. This is a pastime for one player only.
If there were no limitation of the rule for laying out the cards, the analysis would be too complicated to be practicable; hence the added restriction, which forbids the corner to corner contact, and enjoins that each card must be laid vertically or horizontally next to the one last played. We have, in fact, to make a "rook's path" on a chess-board of twenty-five squares, beginning and ending where we please.
While analysis is thus simplified, there still remains considerable scope for variation in the total score obtained. The art of play often consists in the sacrifice of valuable combinations in order to obtain others which, in the aggregate, will count a higher number of points; and curious results may thus be sometimes exhibited. I give the following by way of illustration: it is not difficult.
The twenty-five cards are dealt in the order specified:—
D.6, S.5, C.Q, D.Q, H.Q, H.10, C.10, H.6, C.3, H.J, H. ace, H.5, H.8, H.K, S.Q, H.4, C.2, D.2, H.7, S.J, S.3, H.3, D.3, S.6, H.2.
What is the highest score that can be made by laying out the above cards in serpentine order?
A few trials will suggest the following arrangement, with two straight flushes, intersecting in the ace of hearts, whereby a total of 78 may be secured:—