I think it's a loss. It's just another negative effect of the (somewhat arbitrary) rule that you can't deal a row without a card in each column. If you are playing to win, you have to make sure to avoid this trap.

However, I'm very happy to see this situation since I've enver seen it myself. Perhaps it occurs more frequently in the one-suit version of the game?

What I have never been able to resolve is how one should fill a blank columnbefore the deal. Is it better to (a) move a card into the blank that is a mismatch to its parent in a stack or (b) break a matched sequence in a stack because then you are more likely to have a way to create a blank column.
Roy Yates | 12.24.05 - 11:20 pm | #