Solution to Giza deal number 2112
There are a number of difficulties in solving this deal. All of the eights in the pyramid must be removed using fives from the columns. The locations of the nines and fours are badly intertwined with the sixes and sevens, and the two jacks and two in the pyramid are overlapping, so all three have to be removed using column cards.
Start by discarding the ten of hearts from the pyramid with the three of spades in column 1, the eight of clubs with the five of spades from column 5, and the nine and four of diamonds from the pyramid. The two exposed queens in the pyramid can be discarded with the two exposed aces in the columns, followed by the king of spades:
Although it appears dangerous to discard the jack of diamonds in column 4 with the two of spades in column 2, we need to do that to free up more fours so that we can discard the nines in the lower left part of the pyramid. The nine of hearts can now be removed with the four of spades in column 2, allowing two six-seven pairs to be removed from the pyramid (the king of diamonds in column 2 can also be discarded). We can see that the nine of clubs must be removed along with the four of clubs (discarding nine and four of hearts leaves a blocked position with the last four covering the last nine), so we discard the eight of spades with the five of clubs in column 1, followed by the nine and four of clubs (and king of hearts):
Now only one five remains available to remove the eight of hearts, so we must discard the three of diamonds in column 4 and the ten of spades in column 5, freeing the five of diamonds in column 5 to discard the eight of hearts (the king of clubs goes too). The rest is not too hard: ten of diamonds and three of hearts, jack of hearts and two of diamonds, both queen-ace pairs, six of spades and seven of diamonds, three and ten of clubs, two of hearts and jack of clubs, nine of spades and four of hearts, seven of clubs and six of hearts, jack of spades and two of clubs, and finally five of hearts and eight of diamonds.
This article is copyright ©2007 by Michael Keller. All rights reserved.