Board Game Arena

I wondered about this a longer time ago and it caught my attention again some days ago. I had promising approaches, but won't show them here yet.

can you safely get 0 penalty points (oxes) in a round with the following conditions?

• 5 players

• tactics + professional

• you can freely choose the 4 cards on the starting board and in your hand

• the cards in the opponents hands and their play is to your maximum disadvantage

so, for tactics only, getting guaranteed 0 points with a manipulated deck is rather easy/simple/straighforward
- 54 53 52 51 on the board, you have 41-50, play from highest to lowest
but also:
- 54 53 52 51 board, anything from 38-50 in your hand
- anything from 50-54 / 49-54 / 48-54 on the board, anything from 38-49 / 38-48 / 38-47 in your hand
however it doesnt seem to work when you have a card 50 or higher or if not all your cards are lower than the starting board.

the question now is, is there also at least one board + hand card distribution with guaranteed 0 points for tactics + professional?
if yes, what is it and how to play it?
if no, what's the lowest possible guaranteed score and the accompanying distribution?

what would be different with less than 5 players?

My first thought is to start with lowest cards, but I see there are issues..

I think this works:
On the table 50, 52, 53, 54
My hand 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51
Play 51 first, then from biggest to smallest..

Oh, I see this doesn't work...hmmm, it's tricky...I'll think about it later and get back to you.

So the riddle is: Is there a hand in 5p pro that is absolutely safe no matter what opponents play?

It seems like there should be a solution. But I messed around with this for about 20 minutes without solving it. Pro is so dynamic, it's tough to figure out. It's an interesting puzzle.

ok, thanks for your reply

yes, the main task is to find a hand + starting board for 5 players tactic professional that safely gets 0 points independent of opponents play.

the next or implied question - if 0 is impossible or as long as it's unsolved - is about the lowest score. so what would be yours so far?

I spent some more time on this, and thought I was close to a solution a couple times, but it is indeed impossible. I haven't spent any time trying to solve the absolute minimum points I could be forced to take, but I imagine it would be at least two rows of cards.

You must have figured out a good answer to this? It seems like it would be complex to determine.

how about this:

board 1 2 3 4

hand 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

ok i see, it certainy does nor work for 0 points, but maybe for one trick maximum

starting board
1 5 9 13

hand
2 3 4 6 7 8 10 11 12 14

1. move - play 11 left from 13, row gets taken
2. move - play 7, put it next to 5 or 9 depending on which gets taken or which is better for your next move
3. move - play 6 or 8, put it next to 5/7 or 7/9 ... (see above)
4. move - play 3, put it next to 1 or 5 ... (see above)
5. move - play 2 or 4, put it next to 1/3 or 3/5 ... (see above)

here it's 5 safe moves already with more to follow. the only threat should be taking the highest row with a low number from left. this aside, it should get 0 points often, and 1 trick at most.