TITLE: Deciding if a Solitaire game is solvable
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Is there a fairly straightforward procedure for determining if a given game of Solitaire (say Klondike) is solvable?   
One of my students would like to write a Solitaire game and give an "always winnable" option. It is possible to take a won game and make random plays backwards to create a solvable game.
But my question is:  Is there a test for seeing if a game is solvable that can be readily resolved by examining the state of the game?

REPLY [2 votes]: Perhaps we can start pruning the search space by identifying characteristics of unwinnable games and searching for those.