CHAPTER TWO
Games for One Player
SOLITAIRE IS NOT A SINGLE GAME.. The name refers to a family of games that use a tableau of cards laid out on a playing surface, plus a stock pile of cards from which to draw, in order to build piles of cards that are matched in some way (typically by suit and rank). There are hundreds of Solitaire variations, often known by different names, depending on where or how you first learned the game.
Is Solitaire a game or a puzzle? The answer is—it’s a game! Puzzles have just one solution. And once you discover the solution, the puzzle is solved. Solitaire, on the other hand, is almost infinitely variable. There is no single solution to any hand. And it often requires a strong dollop of skill to win.
In England this family of games is known as Patience, and in many respects the name Patience is better suited, since many of the games below can be played by two or more players and are not strictly solitary pursuits. Universally, the games also require plenty of patience to play.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Modern Solitaire was probably invented in Scandinavia or Germany in the 1700s. The first reference—a one-player game played head to head by two people, for a wager—dates from 1783. From the beginning, it seems, Solitaire was both a solo pursuit and a competitive game.
The British did not embrace Solitaire until the 1850s, but once they did, it was a huge hit. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations mentions the game (Magwitch was a Patience player!). In the United States, the game was never aggressively commercialized, and there is no single “official” compendium of rules or regulations. Hence the profusion of games, often played with major rule differences from region to region.
THE BASICS
At its most fundamental, Solitaire is a game in which players attempt to organize a deck of cards into a specific order, depending on the rules of the game being played. Most Solitaire games feature foundations (typically, but not always, the four aces), on top of which cards of matching suit are piled. You typically end a successful game of Solitaire with four piles, each containing thirteen cards organized by suit and rank.
Most games also feature a tableau, which is a layout or workspace for cards organized into specific shapes, sequences, or even fanciful arrangements. Skip below to Archway or Clock for examples of tableaus gone wild.
Lastly, Solitaire games generally come in two varieties: play out (building up four foundation piles from ace to king, by suit) and elimination (removing cards from the game in pairs or in some specific pattern).