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Bingo. This is it. One of the variants for sure! Thank you so much!

As soon as I read the description, that was my guess too. It was such a simple game and I spent a lot of time playing it.

If you wanted to be patient, it was almost impossible to lose. But if you hurried, it was anlmost impossible to win.

Completely forgot about this one, yet I spent so much time playing it! Absolutely true that pacing is key.

The version I had had cycle-based speed so it became unplayable when I changed computers for a faster clocked one, which prompted me to attempt coding a clone.

Thanks! I used to play it as a kid and have been trying to remember the name of the game for years.