Failure as an Option

I play spider solitaire on the computer quite frequently. I prefer the two-suit mode, as the one-suit mode is too easy, while the four-suit mode is too difficult. It provides a challenge of the mind, combining strategy and luck; some games are made by very careful stacking, while others may come down to finding the right card buried underneath a specific stack. In the many years I've been playing, I have reached several conclusions about the game, one of which is this: impossible spider solitaire games are infuriating!

By impossible, I don't mean extremely difficult, where the success or failure of the game depends on where you put certain cards before the first deal, and by the end, it's taken over a thousand moves to complete the game. By impossible, I mean that it is not physically possible to win. The cards you need aren't there; you can't form stacks; you can't dig; and towards the end, the deal puts out a bunch of kings out at once, thus rendering half the board inaccessible.

This is really irritating to have to deal with. The philosophy that my dad and I share (as well as our strategy for maintaining a 98% win percentage) is that if it doesn't work one way, go back and try something else. If that doesn't work, go back again and try some other thing. Keep doing that until you get through. But with the impossible games, it doesn't matter what you do. And in most cases, there is little-to-no variation available on what you can do at all. Your options on how to proceed are severely restricted, and none of them work.

It has been said time and time again, by many people, that failure is not an option. We would rather not admit it, but failing is an option. The end results tend to be severely unpleasant, so it is not something we would like to consider. But sometimes, like in the cases of the impossible spider solitaire games, failure is not only an option, it is the only option. Sometimes, you had no chance of succeeding from the very beginning.