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?
CLUES
- 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.
- There are four twos in column C.
- No nines have been dealt, but at least one of every other rank has appeared. There is only one
seven.
- 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.
- 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.
- Each set of two or more cards of the same rank lie either in a single row or in a single column.
- Every pair except the pair of fours consists of two cards of different colors.
- None of the three cards of the same rank in column D is part of a completed straight or completed
flush.
- The queen of diamonds at A3 is part of a completed straight.
- Six cards of each suit have been dealt so far.
- . The ace of diamonds is the only diamond in its column.
- 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