Solitaire Card Games: 19 Patience Games to Play Alone

Layout: 28 cards are dealt into seven columns, from one to seven cards, with only the top card face up. The remaining 24 form the stock. Goal: move all 52 cards to the four foundations, one per suit, from ace to king. Key rule: on the columns you build down in alternating colours (a black 9 on a red 10), and a space only takes a king or a sequence headed by a king.

The big decision is draw one or draw three. With draw one you see the whole stock on every pass. With draw three (the "three-card solitaire" so many people search for) you can only play the top card of each three, so many cards stay hidden just when you need them and the game gets much harder. Each household also decides how many passes through the stock are allowed: unlimited, three or just one.

How many come out: nobody has worked out the exact figure with face-down cards, a problem the mathematician Persi Diaconis once called an embarrassment to applied probability. What is known is the ceiling: if every card were known from the start, a program solves around 82 % of deals in the draw-three version. Playing for real, without seeing the cards, the actual percentage is a good deal lower. You will find step-by-step rules, scoring and strategy in our guide to Klondike solitaire rules.

Layout: deal as in Klondike (seven columns of one to seven cards, only the top one face up), then add the remaining 24 cards face up, four on each column except the first. This gives columns of 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 cards, with the top five visible in all except the first. Goal: fill the four foundations from ace to king.

Key rule: you build down in alternating colours, but you can move any face-up card together with everything on top of it, in sequence or not. The only thing that has to fit is the card you move and the card that receives it. Spaces only take kings. There is a harder variant, Russian Solitaire, in which you build in suit instead of alternating colours.

Layout: 13 cards are dealt into a reserve pile with the top card face up, one card to the first foundation and one card to each of the four columns. The rest is the stock. Goal: complete the four foundations.

Key rule: the card dealt to the first foundation sets the starting rank for all of them (if it is a 7, all four foundations start at 7 and go 8, 9... king, ace, 2 up to 6). The columns are built down in alternating colours, also round the corner (a king can go on an ace). You draw three at a time, and spaces in the columns are filled from the reserve. You can only move a whole column, not part of one.

How many come out: with all cards known, a program wins around 71 % of deals; playing blind, with the reserve face down and draw three, you win far fewer.

Layout: 49 cards in seven columns of seven. In the first four columns the bottom three cards are face down; the other three columns are entirely face up. The three spare cards are kept aside. Goal: build four sequences from king to ace, each in one suit.

Key rule: you build down in suit and can move any face-up card together with all the cards on top of it. Spaces only take a king (or a group headed by a king). When there are no moves left, the three spare cards are placed on the first three columns. The hard part is that the face-down cards in the first columns tend to hide exactly what you need.

Layout: all 52 cards are dealt face up into eight columns, four of seven cards and four of six. Above them are four empty free cells and four foundations. Goal: move every card to the foundations, by suit and from ace to king.

Key rule: on the columns you build down in alternating colours and move one card at a time. Each cell holds a single card, and a space takes any card. In practice you can move several cards in sequence at once if you have enough cells or spaces to do it card by card. The skill lies in not filling the cells too early.

Origin: it descends from Baker's Game, which Martin Gardner described in 1968 in Scientific American and which built in suit. Paul Alfille changed that rule to alternating colours and in 1978 programmed the first version for the PLATO educational system. It later came to Windows and became famous.

How many come out: of the 32,000 numbered deals in Microsoft's version, all can be solved except one, deal number 11982. In studies of billions of random deals, only about one in 84,000 turns out to be impossible.

Layout: take out the four aces and place them in a column in the centre as foundations. The remaining 48 cards are dealt face up into eight rows of six, four to the left and four to the right of the aces. Goal: build everything onto the foundations by suit up to the king.

Key rule: only the card at the outer end of each row can be moved, and you build down regardless of suit. An empty row takes any card. Since nothing is hidden, a program playing perfectly wins 68 % of deals: the rest cannot be solved however hard you think. Its best-known relatives are Streets and Alleys, where the aces are not taken out first, and Citadel.

Layout: 52 cards in 13 columns of four, face up and overlapping so that all can be seen. Before you start, any king that is not at the bottom of its column is moved to the bottom. Goal: fill the four foundations from ace to king.

Key rule: only the top card of each column can be moved, you build down regardless of suit and an empty column can never be filled again. The first priority is to free the aces; the second, not to bury low cards under higher ones of the same suit.

Layout: 17 fans of three cards are dealt face up, plus a single card that acts as the 18th fan. Goal: move the cards to the foundations by suit, from ace to king.

Key rule: only the top card of each fan can be moved, one at a time, and you build down in suit. An empty fan is never refilled, not even with a king. When there are no more moves, the fans are gathered up, shuffled and dealt again in threes, up to two times. A low card buried under a higher one of its own suit blocks the fan for good, which is why it pays to watch the kings: at the bottom of a fan they do no harm; on top of other cards of their suit, they do. It is also known as Lovely Lucy, The Fan or Midnight Oil.

Layout: 28 cards in seven overlapping rows, from one to seven cards, forming a face-up pyramid. The remaining 24 form the stock. Goal: remove every card in the pyramid (in the strict version, the stock as well).

Key rule: the ace counts 1, the jack 11, the queen 12 and the king 13; the rest count their number. You remove pairs of exposed cards (with no other card on top) that add up to 13, and kings are removed on their own. Stock cards are drawn one at a time and can be paired with an exposed card in the pyramid or with the top card of the waste. The number of passes through the stock varies from house to house.

How many come out: in simulations of a hundred million deals, with a single pass through the stock and all 52 cards to be removed, you win around 7 % of games. If clearing the pyramid is enough and you can go through the stock as often as you like, you win more than 80 %. So it is worth agreeing the rules before comparing results.

Layout: 35 cards face up in seven columns of five, one face-up card beside them to start the foundation pile, and 16 cards in the stock. Goal: move every card from the columns onto that pile.

Key rule: the bottom card of any column can go onto the pile if it is one rank higher or lower than the top card of the pile, regardless of suit. There is no turning the corner from ace to king, and nothing can be played on a king, so a king on the pile breaks the chain. When you are stuck, you turn a card from the stock onto the pile. There is no second pass.

Scoring: each card left in the columns is one point; if you clear them all, each card left in the stock takes one off. A full round is nine deals, like nine holes. With all cards known, a program clears the table in 45 % of deals.

Layout: 28 cards in three overlapping pyramids: 18 face down and a bottom row of ten face up. The remaining 24 are the stock, and the first is turned up to start the pile. Goal: clear all three peaks.

Key rule: as in Golf, an exposed card goes onto the pile if it is one rank higher or lower than the top card, whatever the suit. When a face-down card has nothing left on top of it, it is turned over. If there is no move, you draw from the stock. The skill is in choosing which branch to follow to chain together as many cards as possible.

Layout: 25 cards face up in five rows of five; the rest is the stock. Goal: discard the whole deck in pairs.

Key rule: you remove two cards of the same rank that touch horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Then you "close up" the remaining cards, shifting them towards the top left corner to fill the gaps in reading order, and top up the grid from the stock until it is back to 25. There is some strategy: sometimes it is better not to remove a pair so that, after closing up, it ends up next to another. It is also known as Weddings.

Layout: four cards face up in a row; the rest in the stock. Goal: discard the 48 cards that are not aces.

Key rule: if two or more of the top cards of the four piles are the same suit, discard all but the highest (the ace is high). When a pile is empty, you can move the top card of another pile into it. If there is nothing to do, deal four more cards, one on each pile. Played normally you win about one game in 35; a program that analyses every move reaches 11 %. It is also known as Idiot's Delight.

Layout: deal the cards face up in a row from left to right, and you can stop dealing at any point to make moves. Goal: gather all 52 cards into a single pile.

Key rule: a card (or a pile, which moves as a whole with its top card) can go onto the card immediately to its left or onto the card three places to the left, if they match in suit or rank. In the example, the 5 of diamonds can go onto the 2 of diamonds (neighbour, same suit) or onto the 5 of clubs (three places left, same rank), but not onto the king. You are never forced to move.

How many come out: the classic handbooks say that played as you deal it comes out roughly once in a hundred games. If you deal the whole row first and plan with everything in view, the picture changes completely: in simulations of millions of deals, a program has found a solution for practically all of them.

Layout: deal 13 piles of four cards face down: twelve in a circle, like the hours, and one in the centre. The ace is one o'clock, the jack eleven and the queen twelve; the kings go in the centre. Goal: turn every card face up.

Key rule: turn over the top card of the centre pile and place it face up under the pile for its hour; then take the top card of that pile and repeat. If a king turns up, it goes under the centre pile. You lose if the fourth king appears while there are still face-down cards on the hours.

How many come out: since everything is decided as soon as you shuffle, the chance of winning is exactly 1 in 13 (7.7 %). Simulations of billions of games confirm it. It is also known as Sundial.

Layout: take out an ace, a 2, a 3 and a 4 of any suit and lay them in a row as foundations. Below them leave room for four waste piles. Goal: move all 52 cards to the foundations until all four end on a king.

Key rule: turn up one card from the stock at a time. If it fits on a foundation, it goes there; if not, it goes on top of one of the four waste piles, from which only the top card can be taken to a foundation. A widely shared tip is to keep one of the piles for kings, which are always the last card on every foundation. It is also known as Broken Intervals.

Layout: in the most common version, the computer one, 54 cards are dealt into ten columns (the first four with six cards and the other six with five), with only the top card face up. The remaining 50 form the stock, which is dealt in five batches of ten, one card on each column. Some classic books deal 50 cards into ten columns of five and leave a final batch of four. Goal: build eight same-suit sequences from king to ace; each complete sequence is removed.

Key rule: any card can go on another one rank higher, whatever the suit, but a group only moves as a whole if it is a same-suit sequence. An empty column takes any card or group, and you cannot deal a new batch while there are empty columns.

Levels: digital versions are played with one suit (all 104 cards are spades), with two (spades and hearts) or with all four. With one suit it is an approachable pastime; with four, you lose most games. There is a single-deck version, Spiderette, dealt like Klondike.

Layout: 40 cards are dealt face up into ten columns of four, overlapping so all can be seen. Above them, leave room for eight foundations. The remaining 64 form the stock. Goal: build all 104 cards onto the eight foundations, by suit and from ace to king.

Key rule: only the top card of each column can be moved, one at a time, and you build down in suit. A space takes any card. You draw from the stock one at a time to the waste, of which only the top card can be used, and there is no second pass. Emptying one or two columns early usually decides the game. In the United States it is called Forty Thieves or Big Forty, and in Europe it is often known as Napoleon at St Helena.

Layout: the deal into seven columns of one to seven cards, with the top card face up, uses 28 cards. With the 40-card deck only 12 are left for the stock, and they run out quickly; with the 48-card deck there are 20 and the game feels more like the French-suited one. That is why many people prefer to play it with the 48-card deck. Goal: move every card to the four foundations.

Key rule: on the columns you build down with cards of a different suit (a 6 of cups on a 7 of clubs, for example). The order is the deck's natural one: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (8 and 9 in the 48-card deck), jack, knight and king. Some Spanish solitaire apps offer several levels: in the easiest you can move whole sequences and spaces only take kings; in the hardest you can only move the top card of each column.

The 40-card deck has ten ranks, so you make nine piles of four cards in a circle (1 to 7, jack and knight) and a tenth in the centre for the kings. With the 48-card deck you get eleven piles in the circle (1 to 9, jack and knight) plus the centre. From there it plays exactly the same: turn over the top card of the centre pile, take it to its pile, pick up the top card of that pile, and so on, until everything is turned up or the fourth king comes out too early.

The pyramid is still 28 cards in seven rows, and with the 48-card deck 20 cards are left in the stock. The values are the printed numbers: jack 10, knight 11 and king 12. You remove pairs of exposed cards that add up to 12 (a 5 with a 7, a 1 with a knight, two sixes) and kings are removed on their own. With the 40-card deck the sum does not work out as neatly, so for this adaptation it is best to use the 48-card deck.

In Monte Carlo you lay out the same 25-card grid and remove touching pairs of the same rank. With 40 cards the stock is shorter and the game ends sooner. In Accordion you make the same row and stack onto the neighbour or onto the third card to the left if suit or rank match. With fewer cards there are fewer possible moves, but also fewer cards to gather.

Layout: shuffle and turn up cards from the stock one at a time. Goal: score as many points as possible with the five rows and five columns. Key rule: each card goes in whichever space you choose, but once placed it cannot be moved. The tension lies in deciding whether to save a row for a flush while keeping a column for three of a kind.