He double-checked that his bedding was flat and then started to carefully place the cards onto his bed spread. One by one he set the cards down, tentatively looking for patterns as he went. Oh no, he thought, one of the aces is after a king; dang it; that’s going to make it that much harder to play. He knew that having an ace land right after a king was a terrible bit of luck because it limited his options from the onset. He would only have three slots to work with instead of the usual four; it wasn’t devastating, but it was annoying, and it would almost definitely restrict how much he could get done in his first round. But, he could probably make it up in the subsequent rounds, so it was more an instant response than a game changing situation.
He could always hope that something good would happen to counterbalance the ace coming after the king situation. One good thing that could happen was for a two to land in a first spot so that he could build off of it without having to clear the space first; this was also beneficial in that the two would stay there when he had to pick up the cards after all the spaces were after kings even if he wasn’t able to add anything to the run. Another, at least somewhat, good thing was for a three to be in a second position; this required the first spot to be cleared, but it still helped to build a run if the spot before it could be cleared. Still another good thing would be if an ace landed in one of those spots because it made it easier for him to start the building process.
As he continued to play the deck, he didn’t notice any of those good things, but he didn’t see any more aces being after any of the rest of the kings either. So, on the whole, he wasn’t too concerned about it. He then collected the aces in a particular order as to remind him which round he was in, and then began to survey the board. He saw several moves that looked promising, but he held off moving anything until he gave each possibility some thought. That included looking ahead a few moves to try to figure out which moves would be the most advantageous to begin with. He didn’t want to jump the gun when it came to making his first moves; it could determine the direction of the whole game, or at least the whole round, so he wanted to be somewhat careful.
