Poker Squares
by Michael Keller in
GAMES February 2006



Frank is playing a game of Poker Squares solitaire, in which he deals out 25 cards one at a time, placing each card wherever he wants in a five-by-five arrangement in an effort to form the best poker hands.   Each of the five rows and five columns counts as a poker hand.   Hands score as listed in the chart below, and a total score of 200 or more points wins the game.   Aces can be high or low, and thus are considered to rank next to both twos and kings.   (A straight cannot contain both a two and a king, however).

Frank has played 24 cards so far.   Can you work out the arrangement from the following clues?


  A  
 
  B   C   D   E
    5    
    4
    3
    2
    1





CLUES

  1. There is an empty space at A5 in the upper left corner. Frank has 106 points based on the eight completed hands. He hopes the last card is a six of spades, which would complete a full house and a straight flush and win the game for him.
  2. There are four twos in column C.
  3. No nines have been dealt, but at least one of every other rank has appeared. There is only one seven.
  4. Row 4 contains a heart flush, and no two cards anywhere in the row are of consecutive rank. The king of hearts appears in a different row.
  5. If frank had played a club at E2, he would have completed a flush in row 2. The card he played instead made a pair, and didn't help his two pair in column E.
  6. Each set of two or more cards of the same rank lie either in a single row or in a single column.
  7. Every pair except the pair of fours consists of two cards of different colors.
  8. None of the three cards of the same rank in column D is part of a completed straight or completed flush.
  9. The queen of diamonds at A3 is part of a completed straight.
  10. Six cards of each suit have been dealt so far.
  11. . The ace of diamonds is the only diamond in its column.
  12. The jack of spades and ten of spades are next to each other in the same row.




    SCORING

    Royal Flush      100 points                     
    Straight Flush    75 points                     
    Four of a Kind    50 points                     
    Full house        25 points                     
    Flush             20 points                     
    Straight          15 points
    Three of a Kind	  10 points
    Two Pair           5 points
    One Pair           2 points
    Nothing	           0 points
    



Send any comments or questions to: David Pleacher