Say the word solitaire and most people picture one particular game: seven columns of cards, a few turned face up, and a satisfying cascade of cards bouncing off the screen at the end. That game is Klondike, and it is only one member of a huge family. In Britain the whole family is often called patience.
What unites them is that you play alone against the deck. What separates them is everything else: how the cards are laid out, what you are allowed to move, how much is hidden and how much is luck. Some reward slow, careful planning. Others are quick and breezy, a game for a cup of tea. Here is a tour of six of the most popular, with the rules as they are usually played and a note on how each one behaves on MerryArcade.
Klondike: the one everybody knows
Klondike deals twenty-eight cards into seven columns, with one card in the first column, two in the second, and so on up to seven. Only the top card of each column is face up. The remaining cards form the stock. Your aim is to move all fifty-two cards onto four foundation piles, one per suit, built up from Ace to King.
In the columns, called the tableau, you build downward in alternating colours: a red six on a black seven, a black five on that red six. You can move a properly built run as a group, and when a face-down card is uncovered you turn it over. Only a King, or a run starting with a King, may fill an empty column. When you run out of moves, you turn cards from the stock.
Traditionally Klondike is played either turning one card at a time from the stock or three at a time, and some players limit how often you may go back through the stock. Turning three makes the game much harder, because you can only reach every third card. Our Solitaire turns one card at a time and lets you recycle the stock as often as you like, which makes it a friendly version to learn on, with undo for second thoughts.
The key skill in Klondike is uncovering hidden cards. When you have a choice, the move that turns over a face-down card is usually better than one that does not.
Spider: the big one
Spider uses two full decks, one hundred and four cards, dealt into ten columns with only the top cards face up. The rest wait in the stock. Here you build downward regardless of colour or suit, so any six can go on any seven. The catch is that only a run of the same suit can be moved as a unit. The goal is to assemble complete runs from King down to Ace in a single suit; each finished run is removed from the table. Clear all eight and you have won.
When you are stuck you deal from the stock, which drops one new card onto every column at once. That is often unwelcome, because it buries runs you were building. Most versions, including ours, will not let you deal while any column is empty, so you must fill gaps first.
Spider is usually offered in difficulty levels by number of suits. With one suit, every card is effectively the same suit and the game is approachable. With two suits it becomes a proper puzzle, and with all four it is a famously stiff challenge. Our Spider Solitaire offers one, two and four suits. Start with one; you will learn the important habit of keeping an empty column for as long as possible.
FreeCell: no hidden cards, no excuses
FreeCell deals all fifty-two cards face up into eight columns. Above them sit four foundations and four free cells, each of which can hold a single card temporarily. You build down in alternating colours, as in Klondike, and any card can go into an empty free cell or an empty column.
Because nothing is hidden, FreeCell is almost pure skill. It is widely reported that among the 32,000 numbered deals in the best-known early computer version, only one could not be solved. That means when you lose, it is nearly always because of a decision you made, which is both the frustration and the charm.
Officially you move one card at a time, but empty cells and columns let you shift a longer run in steps, so most computer versions do this for you. Our FreeCell calculates the longest run you can move from your free cells and empty columns. The lesson every FreeCell player learns is that empty space is your most valuable resource. Filling every free cell early is the fastest way to lose.
Pyramid: adding up to thirteen
Pyramid works completely differently. Twenty-eight cards are dealt into a triangle of seven rows, each row overlapping the one above. Instead of building sequences, you remove pairs of cards whose values add up to thirteen: a six with a seven, a nine with a four, a Jack (worth eleven) with a two, a Queen (twelve) with an Ace. Kings are worth thirteen alone and are removed by themselves.
A card can only be used when no card is overlapping it. You can also pair exposed cards with the top card of the stock or waste pile. The skill lies in the order of removal, because taking an easy pair now can strand a card you need later.
Pyramid is a game with a lot of luck, and many deals cannot be cleared. Our Pyramid Solitaire gives you three passes through the stock, which is a common and fair compromise.
TriPeaks: chains and streaks
TriPeaks lays twenty-eight cards out as three overlapping peaks, with the ten cards along the bottom row face up and the rest face down. You start with one card on the waste pile and remove any exposed card that is exactly one rank higher or lower than it. That card becomes the new waste card, so you can build long chains: seven, eight, nine, eight, seven.
Rules differ on whether the ranks wrap around. In our TriPeaks they do, so a King connects to an Ace and an Ace to a two, and the chain never hits a dead end. When you cannot play, you turn a card from the stock. Our version rewards long unbroken runs with a growing streak multiplier, so the real decision is which card to play when you have two choices: pick the one that keeps the chain going longest or uncovers more cards.
Golf: the quickest round in the pack
Golf deals thirty-five cards face up into seven columns of five. The rest form the stock, with one card turned onto the waste. As in TriPeaks, you can play any exposed card that is one rank above or below the waste card, building a chain. The name comes from the scoring: like a round of golf, you want as few cards left over as possible.
In most versions the ranks do not wrap, and in some traditional rules nothing may be played on a King at all. Our Golf Solitaire does not wrap, so an Ace only connects to a two, while a Queen and a King count as neighbours. Clearing all thirty-five cards is rare enough to feel like a hole in one.
Which solitaire should you play?
- For a relaxed, familiar game: Klondike, drawing one card at a time.
- For deep thinking and almost no luck: FreeCell.
- For a long, absorbing session: Spider, starting with one suit.
- For a quick mental arithmetic workout: Pyramid.
- For a fast, streaky game in a few minutes: TriPeaks or Golf.
A word on luck and skill
Every solitaire game sits somewhere on a line between luck and skill. Golf and Pyramid lean towards luck; a bad deal is simply a bad deal. Klondike sits in the middle. Spider and FreeCell lean strongly towards skill. On a busy day a two-minute round of Golf can be exactly right; on a quiet Sunday, a stubborn four-suit Spider.
Whichever you choose, one habit helps across all of them: look before you move. Scan the whole layout, ask what each possible move will uncover or block, and only then commit.