Last updated, 24 jan 2001
Rangoon is a game of solitaire with all of the 52 cards faced up. Though all the cards are shown, and in spite of its simple rules it is a challenge to find the strategy to complete a game.
After shuffling the deck thouroughly, the cards will be laid
down face up in four rows of thirteen cards each. Subsequently
the kings are taken up, and put down in front of the rows.
The object is to rearrange the cards such that each row contains
one complete family (the cards of a suit in the correct ranking:
King, Queen, Jack, Ten, ...., Three, Two, Ace).
Rearranging is done by using the four vacant places which were
created by moving the kings to the front. A card can be moved to
a gap, provided the card is ranked with the card in front of the
gap ( e.g. the 6 of spades can be moved behind the 7 of spades).
By moving another gap emerges, which can be used to move a card
to, and so on. The game is over when all gaps are behind an Ace
or behind another gap, so no more card can be moved.
This solitaire enjoys some popularity in the Netherlands, and is
known under various names and in various flavors. The program of
Rangoon supports a number of variants.
The look-alike games known as "Montana Aces" (where the gaps are
created by removing the aces) and "Gaps" (sometimes played with
less than 52 cards) are supported from version 1.29
Another WWW-page will give you a more detailed
description of the rules of this group of solitaire-games.
Rangoon is released as a postcardware program, which means you are free to use the program. And, when YOU think the program is worth it, express your appreciation by sending a picture postcard to the author of the program. Being a collector of lighthouse postcards, my preference goes to a postcard depicting a lighthouse. But - of course - I would be pleased just as much with a postcard from your hometown.
Rangoon is available as a program written in VisualBasic 2 (and so has to be run under MS/Windows). Click download for the most recent released version (1.31, appr 180 kb)
Because the program is written in VisualBasic, you also need the run-time library VBRUN200.DLL. Just in case you don't have it on your PC yet, you can download VBRUN200.ZIP from many software repositories, like one in [-Australia-] [-Canada-] [-Finland-] [-UK-] [-USA, California-] [-USA, Michigan-] [-USA, Utah-]
At due times a beta-version with new features is available for testing. Currently there is no new version available for beta-testing. The main feature of the next version (1.40) is the integration of the replay in the standard screen.
The shuffling of a hand is derived from an identification and the sequence-number of the game. And so, everybody using the same identification will play the same hands.
Some statistics on the first 1000 hands of the standard play-id RANGOON, as collected by the author, are provided in three formats:
Some statistics on the first 1000 hands of the standard play-id MONTANA, as collected by the author, again provided in three formats:
Contributions to the above lists, and in particular the Topscore List are greatly appreciated, and can be send to Rudy.Muller@net.HCC.nl