The solitaire game Interchange is one of the most popular but challenging solitaire games.
A Pretty Good Solitaire player has come up with some tips and tricks to help you score better at Interchange.
Read how to get in Zen-mode for solitaire.
Beleaguered Castle is a classic open solitaire game. In an open game, all of the cards are dealt face up at the start of the game, so you can see the placement of all cards. Like most open games, Beleaguered Castle is mostly a game of skill.
At the start of the game, all the cards of one deck are dealt to eight piles, four on the left and four on the right. Six cards are dealt face up to each pile, while the Aces are placed in the middle to start four foundation piles. These foundation piles are to be built up in suit from the Aces to Kings. The game is won when all the cards are played here.
Within the eight tableau piles, one card can be moved at a time. Building is down regardless of suit. An empty space can be filled by any card.
Winning Beleaguered Castle requires that you build long runs of cards in the tableau. The first thing to do is to empty a tableau pile or two so that you can begin a long run starting with a high card, ideally a King. Then try to build that pile down as far as possible and also create another empty space to do it again. It is not a good idea to let one of the foundation piles get too far ahead of the others because you may need those cards to build a long run.
Beleaguered Castle is a hard game to win. An average player can win only about 20-25% of the time, but since it is a game of skill a good player can increase that percentage significantly. This classic and strategic game is underrated by players and is not played as often as it should be.
Beleaguered Castle is one of the 600 games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Rules to Beleaguered Castle
Pretty Good Solitaire User Statistics for Beleaguered Castle
Baker's Dozen is a simple but strategic open solitaire game. As a open game, all of the cards are dealt face up at the start of the game, so you can see the placement of all cards. Like most open games, Baker's Dozen is mostly a game of skill.
The single deck of cards is dealt out into 13 piles (hence the name of the game). Each pile contains 4 cards, face up. During the deal, Kings are moved to the bottom of their piles. There are 4 standard foundation piles, which start the game empty and are built up in suit from Aces to Kings. The game is won when all the cards are moved here.
Within the tableau, cards are built in descending sequence but regardless of suit. Only one card can be moved at a time and no card may be played to an empty pile.
It is important to keep close track of all cards that lie beneath a higher card of the same suit in the same pile. In order to win, the lower card must be pulled out somehow. Your objective in moving cards should be to get all of these cards out from under. In the process, be careful of playing cards to the foundations too soon. If you let one foundation pile get too far ahead of the others, you may find yourself in a situation where you need some of the cards that have been played to the foundations in the tableau to build on to free another card. Also keep in mind that you cannot refill an empty pile, so once a pile is gone, it's gone.
Some positions will be very difficult to win. An average player can win about 75% of the time, and a good player can approach winning all the time, but there will be some very difficult positions, and occasionally a position that cannot be won at all.
Baker's Dozen is among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Australian Patience is a solitaire game that combines elements from the popular games Klondike, also known as the standard Windows solitaire game, and Yukon.
To begin the game, 28 cards are dealt out to the tableau, 4 cards each to 7 piles. All of the cards are face up. The remainder of the cards form a stock, which will be turned over 1 card at a time to a waste pile. The 28 card layout is the same number of cards as Klondike, although the fact that all the piles have the same number of cards is different from Klondike.
There are 4 foundation piles, each pile built up in suit from Ace to King, as in both Klondike and Yukon. The object of the game is to move all of the cards to these piles.
The 7 tableau piles are built down by suit. Empty spaces in the tableau may only be filled by a King or a group of cards headed by a King. Among the 7 tableau piles you can move groups of cards regardless of any sequence. This means that any face up card, no matter how deeply buried, can be moved by picking it and all the cards on top of it up together. This is like Yukon.
When you have no moves, you can turn over the top card of the stock to the waste pile. The top card of the waste pile is available for play on the foundations or on a tableau pile. You can play only once through the stock, there is no redeal.
Australian Patience is harder than Yukon primarily because of the stock and waste piles. Needed cards are often buried in the waste pile and unavailable. A low ranked card that gets buried deep in the waste pile will usually spell doom for the game. To win, you need to get as many cards out of the waste pile as possible. Average players can win Australian Patience only about 20% of the time, while very good players can get their winning percentage up to around 33%.
Australian Patience is among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire. It's origin is in Australia, hence it's name.
Rules to Australian Patience
Pretty Good Solitaire User Statistics for Australian Patience
Auld Lang Syne is a very old solitaire game that is a very difficult game to win. It is very simple to describe and play, but very hard to actually win.
The aces are removed from 1 deck and are used to start the 4 foundations. The foundations are to be built up regardless of suit to Kings. Play consists of dealing out 4 cards at a time in rows in the tableau below the foundations. After each row is dealt, any cards that can be played up the foundations are moved. You can't move cards within the tableau and there is no redeal.
Albert Morehead & Geoffrey Mott-Smith in their 1949 book estimated the win rate at 1 in 100 games. Various computer algorithms for playing have only won about 1 in 4000 games. Pretty Good Solitaire players have been winning about 1 in 500 games. While there is some bit of element of skill involved in the game when there is occasionally a decision to make choosing between 2 or more possible moves, for the most part Auld Lang Syne is an automatic game. It can be fun to play if you want something mindless.
A number of variations have been created by people looking to inject some skill into the game. An old variation that actually makes it more difficult is Tam O'Shanter. In this game, the aces are not dealt out at first and instead come out during the game. Tam O'Shanter can only be won once for every many thousands of games.
A game that makes it easier is Acquaintance. Acquaintance adds 2 redeals to the game. This gives you a fighting chance to win most positions.
Another variation is Sir Tommy. In Sir Tommy, instead of dealing out the cards 4 at a time, the player can choose which pile to place each card. This greatly increases the skill level of the game. Sir Tommy may actually be an even older game than Auld Lang Syne. Mary Whitmore Jones in her 1899 patience book wrote that it might be the first solitaire game invented and that it dates "back as far as the beginning of the century, if not further", by which she means the year 1800. In an 1869 book, Sir Tommy is referred to as simply "solitaire", in much the same way that Klondike is now often called solitaire. At the time it apparently was the most well known solitaire game.
Morehead & Mott-Smith invented a variation of Sir Tommy called Strategy. Strategy takes everything full circle from Auld Lang Syne. Instead of a difficult to win game lacking skill, Strategy is a game that involves complete skill and can be won nearly every time with good play.
Auld Lang Syne is among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Rules to Auld Lang Syne
Pretty Good Solitaire Top Scores for Auld Lang Syne
Agnes Three is new three deck solitaire game based on the old game Agnes Bernauer.
At the start of the game, the cards from three decks are dealt out to 13 tableau piles, one card to the first pile, two cards to the second pile, and so on up to 13 cards to the 13th pile. All the cards are dealt face up. 13 more cards are dealt out to 13 reserve piles, below the tableau piles.
One card is dealt to the first foundation pile, to become the foundation base card. The remaining foundation piles will be built up in suit from the rank of this first card dealt to the first pile, wrapping from King to Ace as necessary, until each of the 12 foundation piles contains 13 cards, winning the game.
The remainder of the cards form a stock. Building in the tableau is down by alternate color, and groups of cards in sequence down by alternate color can be moved together. Empty spaces in the tableau are filled by a card or group of cards headed by a card of rank one rank below the foundation base card (Kings if the base card is an Ace, if the base card is an Eight, then spaces are filled with Sevens). The top card of each reserve pile is available for play on the foundations or tableau. When stuck, deal one more card to each reserve pile (13 cards total) from the stock. There is no redeal.
The play in Agnes Three consists of building runs of cards in the tableau and exposing as many of the buried cards as possible. It is also necessary to play as many of the cards from the reserves as possible to the foundations or tableau so that they do not get buried under the new cards dealt to the reserves. Avoiding blocks where cards get buried in the tableau or reserves is the key to victory.
Agnes Three was invented by Thomas Warfield and is one of the 600 games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Rules to Agnes Three
Pretty Good Solitaire Agnes Three Statistics
Aces Up is a simple but fun and popular solitaire game.
At the start of the game, four cards are dealt in a row. Any card that is of lower rank and the same suit of another top card can be removed from play. Aces are considered to be of the highest rank. For example, if among the first four cards dealt there are a Two of Hearts and a Nine of Hearts, the Two of Hearts can simply be removed from play as it is of the same suit as the Nine of Hearts but is of lower rank.
When all possible cards are removed, deal four more cards on top of the four piles. If one of the four piles should become empty, you can move any top card from any of the other piles into the empty space to create more possible plays.
The object is to remove all of the cards except for the Aces.
Aces Up is an easy game to play, but it is not easy to win. As you can see from the Aces Up statistics, the average player wins only about 4% of the time. A good player can increase this rate.
The primary area of choices in Aces Up is deciding what card to play into an empty space. It is best to try to find a card that will allow you to remove many other cards. Note that the only way to get at cards beneath an Ace is to move the Ace to an empty pile.
Aces Up is one of the 600 games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Rules to Aces Up
Pretty Good Solitaire User Statistics for Aces Up
Aces and Kings is a challenging 2 deck solitaire game with a simple layout.
At the start of the game, 4 cards are dealt out 1 each to 4 tableau piles. Then 26 more cards are dealt out 13 each to 2 reserve piles. All of the cards are face up. The remainder of the cards in the 2 decks form a stock, which will be turned over 1 at a time to a waste pile.
There are 8 foundation piles. 4 piles will be built up regardless of suit beginning with Aces up to Kings, one pile for each suit, and the other 4 piles will be built down regardless of suit starting with Kings down to Aces, also one pile for each suit. The object is to move all of the cards to the foundations.
Play begins by trying to found any available Aces or Kings. You can move any of the 4 cards in the tableau to the foundations, if possible. When a card is moved from the tableau, the space is filled immediately by the top card of the stock. There is no building on the tableau. The top card of each reserve pile is also available for play on the foundations.
When you have no moves, you can turn over the top card of the stock to the waste pile. The top card of the waste pile is available for play on the foundations. You can play only once through the stock, there is no redeal.
Because there are 13 cards buried in each reserve pile, it is important to play cards from the reserves as much as possible.
The key to winning is to make use of the fact that there is no restriction on moving cards between foundation piles. That is, when you are building the Ace piles up and the King piles down, when they meet you can move cards from one to the other. This is a great way to play off cards that couldn't otherwise be played. When the foundation piles meet, look for ways to move the cards between piles so that you can play off cards from either the reserves or the tableau.
Aces and Kings is a very difficult game to win, even the best players rarely win better than 10% of the time. Most players only win about 5% of the time.
Aces and Kings is among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire. It was invented by Thomas Warfield in 1996.
Forty Thieves is a very old and popular solitaire game that is known under many names, such as Napoleon at St. Helena and Roosevelt at San Juan. It's characteristics form the basis of as many as 100 or more other solitaire games. While it may not be the oldest game of its type, because it seems to combine the standard elements of its type in the best way it has come to be the most popular and important game of its type.
Forty Thieves is a two deck game. At the start of the game 40 cards (the 40 thieves) are dealt out in 10 piles of 4 cards each with all 40 cards face up and visible. The remaining cards form the stock and turned over one card at a time to a waste pile. When Aces appear in the play they are moved up to found the 8 foundation piles, which are built up in suit in the usual way. The game is won when all the cards are moved up to the foundations.
Among the 40 card tableau, building is down by suit. Only one card at a time can be moved from pile to pile and empty spaces can be filled by any card. It is important to create empty spaces as quickly as possible, and also a good idea to keep an empty space or two available so that cards can be more easily moved around.
Forty Thieves is a difficult game. An average player can win about 10% of the time, while really good players can win upwards of about 20% of the time.
Because Forty Thieves is such a basic game, there are huge numbers of variations of it. In many games the rules are changed slightly to make the game a bit easier to win. An example of this is the game Josephine, which is exactly the same as Forty Thieves except that groups of cards down by suit can be moved in the tableau instead of just one card at a time. Deal the Aces out to the foundations at the start of the game and the game is called San Juan Hill. Allow building down by alternate color instead of suit (making it a bit easier) and the game is called Streets.
In all, Pretty Good Solitaire contains 90 different games of the Forty Thieves types, including both one and two deck variations. See them all among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Montana, a variation of Gaps, is a very popular and unusual solitaire game. It is played with all 52 cards of one deck fully visible in 4 rows of 13 cards.
At the beginning of the game the 52 cards are dealt to these 4 rows of 13 cards. After the deal, the 4 aces are removed from wher ever they are. This creates 4 spaces, or gaps. Play then begins.
To play, you can move any card into a space if it is of the same suit and one rank higher than the card to the left of the space. For example, if there is a space to the right of the Five of Diamonds, you can move the Six of Diamonds from where ever it is and place it to the right of the Five. For spaces at the far left of the row, where there are no cards to the left, you can place a Two of any suit. No card may be placed in a space to the right of a King.
The object is to arrange each of the 4 rows into sequences from Two to King of a suit. If you can do this, the game is won.
The difficulty lies in the fact that you cannot put cards in a space to the right of a King. Eventually, it is likely that all of the spaces with be to the right of Kings. When that happens, you can gather up all the cards that are not properly placed (that is, all the cards that are not yet in a sequence from Two up in suit, starting from the left end of a row), shuffle them, and lay them back into the vacant spaces. You can leave a space between the last remaining card in the row and the first card dealt back, or for added difficulty, shuffle the Aces in with the other cards and have the spaces appear randomly again where ever the Aces fall. Most sources allow two such redeals, but some say only 1 deal is allowed. If you allow unlimited redeals, you will eventually win the game, but you can consider it a challenge to see how few redeals it takes.
There are several variations of Gaps and Montana. In Spaces and Aces, the Aces are not removed, and instead of Twos placed at the beginning of each row, the Aces are placed there. The leftmost spot in each row begins the game empty, and there are actually 4 rows of 14 spaces. Free Parking is like Gaps, but in addition to being able to play a card one rank higher in suit than the card to the left of the space, you can play a card one rank in suit lower than the card to the right of the space. Since this makes the game easier, only one shuffle is allowed.
Montana, Gaps, Spaces and Aces, and Free Parking are among the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire.
