Why is Freecell so devlishly challenging

All of the 32,000 Microsoft deals except for number 11982 are solvable.

Jim Horne's version for Windows 3.1 contained 32,000 numbered deals (games), so that selecting a specific number would always produce the same deal. (These are random deals, generated by integer seeds using the random number generator in the Microsoft C compiler). ..... Happily, when the game was ported to Windows 95 and later operating systems, the set of 32,000 deals was the same, so any discussion of deal numbers applies to all Microsoft versions. The help file for Microsoft FreeCell contains the claim "It is believed (though not proven) that every game is winnable."......

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In August 1994, Ring solicited volunteers on rec.puzzles, sci.math, and elsewhere (eventually getting more than 100 people involved), and coordinated the volunteers in an effort to solve all 32,000 of the deals in the Microsoft versions .... all but one deal was reported solved! This is the famous number 11982...... 11982 has now eluded solution by probably thousands of human solvers, and at least eight independent computer programs I am aware of (most of which are designed to search exhaustively for a solution), and I am confident in calling it impossible....

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FrancoDT said:

No but I only play it on a medium or occasional hard level though lol. Expert level, forget that lol. That's the MS Solitaire version by the way.

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