Solitaire Games

Spider

Spider is a classic 2 deck game that is among the most popular of solitaire games. In a recent poll, Spider was the 7th most popular game among users of Pretty Good Solitaire. It is a difficult game of skill.

There are 10 tableau piles and while the piles can be built down regardless of suit, only groups of cards built down by suit can be moved together. Spider differs from most solitaire games in that there are no foundation piles. When a group of 13 cards in descending sequence down by suit are grouped together, they are removed from play. The object is to remove all the cards from play. The cards that are not dealt out at the start are held in the stock. When there are no more moves in the tableau, one card is dealt to each tableau pile from the stock.

It is very easy to get blocked in Spider. You can get blocked when you build out of suit, or when cards get dealt from the stock onto a sequence. Therefore it is critical to build in suit as much as possible. Empty tableau piles (spaces) are extremely valuable and can be used to help moves cards around, but you must fill all spaces before dealing from the tableau.

The average player wins Spider about 10% of the time. A good player can win about 33% of the time and a really good player can score 50%. But it appears that a really excellent player who makes extensive use of undo can score nearly 100%. It is possible that nearly every Spider game is winnable and that Spider may be nearly completely a game of skill.

With the release of Windows ME, Spider became the 3rd solitaire game to be included with Windows (joining Klondike and FreeCell). This has greatly increased Spider's popularity. Because Spider is so difficult, the Windows ME program adds two easier levels of play, which are called One Suit and Two Suit. Spider One Suit makes Spider easier by making all the cards of same suit, changing the game so that moving groups no longer depends on suit. As a solitaire purist, I find this changing of a deck of cards into just one suit somewhat blasphemous, but it is essentially the same idea as the Spider variant game Black Widow (in Pretty Good Solitaire and Spider Wizard).

Black Widow is the same as Spider except groups of cards can be moved regardless of suit. This makes the game much easier. Spider Two Suits is the same idea except there are two suits instead of one, meaning cards can be moved regardless of color. Black Widow is included in Pretty Good Solitaire. Another related game is Tarantula. This game is the same as Spider except groups of cards can be moved if they are in descending sequence of the same color.

Spider is one of the 600 games in Pretty Good Solitaire and one of the 16 in Spider Wizard. Using either program, you can use the Wizard to make all kinds of variations of Spider. Pretty Good Solitaire comes with 49 variations of Spider, including Black Widow, Tarantula, Rouge et Noir, and Simple Simon.

Klondike

Klondike is the classic solitaire game with 7 tableau piles. It is the game called just "solitaire" in Windows. Klondike has long been one of the most popular of solitaire games. Some people don't even know that any other solitaire game exists.

Klondike is more than 100 years old, dating back at least to the Klondike gold rush. It is also known by other names, such as Triangle, and is sometimes called Canfield in England (there is another game more commonly called Canfield, which is often called Demon in England). There are many different solitaire games similar to Klondike and there are even many different ways to play Klondike itself.

In its purest form, Klondike is very difficult to win. Cards are turned over from the stock to the waste in sets of 3 and there is no redeal. Playing this way you can win at best around 3% of the time. Most computer implementations of Klondike, including the one that comes with Windows, allow unlimited redeals. This makes the game considerably easier.

To make the game easier yet, it can be played turning cards from the stock one at a time instead of three at a time. And finally, Pretty Good Solitaire's Klondike has a "KingOnly" option. In normal Klondike, only Kings or groups of cards headed by a King can be played to an empty tableau pile. By turning off KingOnly, you can play any card to an empty tableau pile. With the rules relaxed in this way it is possible to win virtually every game. Thus there is something for everyone in Klondike - you can make the game as easy or as hard as you like.

Klondike is one of the 600 games in Pretty Good Solitaire and one of the 16 in Solitaire Wizard. Using either program, you can use the Wizard to make all kinds of variations of Klondike. There are several interesting 2 deck variations of Klondike. These include Double Klondike, Gargantua, and Harp.

Rules to Klondike
Klondike Statistics of Pretty Good Solitaire Players
Play Klondike Online

FreeCell

FreeCell is the most popular solitaire game. An extremely strategic game, virtually every FreeCell position can be won.

FreeCell is a very young solitaire game. It was invented only around 20 years ago by Paul Allfile for the PLATO educational computer system. It was the first major solitaire game invented specifically for play on computers. It is a simple variation of Baker's Game and is related to an older, classic game called Eight Off.

FreeCell begins by dealing out all 52 cards into 8 tableau piles. The first 4 piles will have 7 cards, the last 4 only 6 cards. All the cards are face up, which makes FreeCell an open game. Open solitaire games are usually the most interesting and give the most opportunity for skillful play and FreeCell is no exception.

The object of FreeCell is to build 4 foundation piles up in suit from Aces to Kings. In addition to the foundations and tableau, there are 4 cells. Each cell is a storage place for one card. Any available card can be moved to an empty cell, and cards in the cells can be moved either back to the tableau or to the foundations.

In Baker's Game, the tableau piles are built down by suit. This makes for a challenging game. FreeCell allows building in the tableau down by alternate color, which makes for a better, more balanced game. Moving groups of cards is not strictly allowed in FreeCell. However, most computer implementations of the game allow for moving groups of cards as a shortcut. If you have all 4 cells empty, for example, it would be possible to move a group of 5 cards in sequence down by alternate color by moving the top 4 cards to the cells, then moving the 5th card, then moving the 4 cards back from the cells to reform the group. Since this is a rather laborious process, most FreeCell games allow you to simply move all 5 cards together at once. The effect of this is that the number of empty cells determines how many cards you can move as a group. It is very important to try to keep the cells as empty as possible so that you can move more cards around in the tableau. Another effect is that clearing a tableau pile also greatly increases the number of cards you can move as a group, since the empty pile can be used not only to store one card, but an entire group of cards.

FreeCell can be won very nearly every time. Only a very few FreeCell positions are impossible to win. The best known impossible position is #11982 in the Microsoft version of FreeCell that comes with Windows. This position is the only one of the regular 32000 positions in that game that is impossible to solve. Pretty Good Solitaire uses a different game numbering system. No impossible positions have yet been found among its over 2 billion starting positions, but it is very likely that there are some.

There is a great deal of information about FreeCell available on the internet. The FreeCell information site has a collection of the best FreeCell links, including links to Michael Keller's FreeCell FAQ and catalog of solutions, which is the most comprehensive site about FreeCell.

FreeCell is one of the 600 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire. Pretty Good Solitaire contains 35 games of the FreeCell type, including the very closely related games Eight Off and Baker's Game, and the 2 deck game Double FreeCell. FreeCell is also one of the 16 games in FreeCell Wizard.

Rules to FreeCell
FreeCell Statistics of Pretty Good Solitaire Players
Play FreeCell Online