This is a "problem" variety of the above game introduced by Ernest
Bergholt. In the preceding game, {269} 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.