YJL

Canfield is part of BSD Games, a Patience/Solitaire game, also a gambling game.

At first few plays, I could barely get a few into the foundations, I thought even I wasn’t good at Patience game, but I couldn’t be that bad, could I?

Finally, I looked up on Wikipedia and the first line it reads:

[…] with a very low probability of winning. According to legend, it is originally a casino game, […]. In England, it is known as Demon. [some emphases mine]

Now that makes sense, furthermore, in the story behind the game:

Richard A. Canfield, noted gambler, owned the Canfield Casino in Saratoga Springs, New York during the 1890s. Gamblers at his casino would play the game by “buying” a deck of cards for $50. The gambler would then play the game and earn $5 for every card he managed to place into the foundations; if one was fortunate enough to place all 52 cards into the foundations, the player would win $500. Although players make a loss (about an average of five to six cards), the game proved to be popular, and Canfield became rich. […]

$500 for $50? In your sweet dream, that’s not gonna happen. I have only got 16 cards off, I wonder how many people have ever got all 52 cards into the foundations, and how many have even broken even. Canfield must be really rich. $50 in 1890s, that has to worth a lot in today’s money.

I must have played more than 50 times, but only to get 16 cards off at my best, this is not a Patience but a Hopelessness or a Gamble.

Canfield was created in 1980 by Steve Levine, written in C with ncurses, part of BSD Games, under the Original BSD License (4-clause), currently version 2.17 (2005-02-18).

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But as Canfield knew very well, winning this game is unlikely, as one can manage to place an average of five to six cards.