When you think solitaire‚ you`re actually thinking Klondike. Klondike is a game of solitaire without any qualifiers. Klondike has many other names‚ Patience‚ American Patience‚ and Triangle being some of the most popular ones.
The game is relatively easy to play‚ and there isn`t much strategy involved. You will win more than half the time. Klondike solitaire helps you build patience‚ improve concentration‚ and enhance decision-making.
Here`s a quick look at the game`s rules and some tips to help improve your odds of winning.
Klondike involves a single deck of cards without the jokers. After shuffling the deck‚ 28 cards are dealt‚ face downwards. Seven columns of cards are made‚ with the first column having one card‚ the second having two cards‚ and so on.
Once the tableau is ready‚ the first card in every column is flipped to face upwards. The 24 other cards that are still in the deck are placed face-down. This pile of the other cards is called the “stock” or the “pile.”
The game has two more spaces for cards: the preview and the goals. These are empty when the game begins.
The goals or foundations are where you build the suit. The preview is what you use to draw more cards from the stock. A ready to play klondike game looks like this:
The goal of Klondike is to arrange the deck of cards in the correct order and build the four suits on the goals or foundations. You must start every suit with the ace and work your way up to the king.
This means the foundations are empty at the beginning of the game. Once the foundations have all four suits‚ you win the game.
When an ace becomes available‚ you must place it on one of the foundations. The foundations are a row of four spaces above the tableau of cards. You can then begin placing cards from the suit above the ace in sequence.
Once a face-up card is moved‚ the face-down card above it is flipped over. This way‚ cards become available throughout the game. So‚ the challenge of the game is to arrange the cards in the columns.
You can move any face-up card under a higher-ranking card in the columns as long as the card is the opposite color. For instance‚ you can place a black queen under a red king.
Further‚ if there is more than one face-up card in a column‚ all face-up cards can be moved as a unit to be placed under a higher-ranking card.
The stock comprises 24 cards‚ and you can go through them three at a time by placing the cards in the preview space. The preview space is sometimes called the waste pile.
The order of the cards in the preview space is preserved‚ and you can only take the card on the top of the set of three cards. Once you use up the top card‚ you will be able to access the card below it.
Once you go through the stock ‚ you can gather up the cards and go through the stock again.
Or‚ you can flip through the stock one card at a time. While there`s no solid proof that going about looking through the stock one card at a time helps your chances of getting solitaire‚ it helps instinctively.
Players were only allowed to go through the stock a total of three times. But most versions of Klondike now ignore this rule. You can go through the stock as many times as you like.
As you progress through the game‚ there will be points where all the cards will be removed from columns. You can use this space to place a king and arrange the cards according to their rank. You cannot place any other card in a space.
Winning at Klondike is not all skill – there`s a chance that the game you got isn`t solvable. Further‚ the game involves a lot of guesswork. This makes the game a little harder to win.
Here are some tips to help you remove some of the guesswork from the game when you play:
There are two approaches to taking cards from the stock in this game. You can either take one card at a time or look at three cards at a time with the ability to pick the first one in the set.
Both approaches work well. But‚ if you deal three cards at a time‚ you will need to pay close attention to the order of the cards in the stock.
Regardless‚ all the tips outlined above are applicable to both approaches of dealing cards.