Solitaire Strategy Guide: How to Beat Solitaire
Everybody who ever touches a computer at some point or another comes across the generic game of Solitaire. Most people enjoy it for a little while, but find it too hard and frustrating to master and never come back to it. Slowly, the inability to beat Solitaire eats away at their souls until they go out into the world and commit violence. Below, I have come up with the ULTIMATE SOLITAIRE STRATEGY GUIDE to help you figure out how to beat the game Solitaire once and for all and permanently put a stop to Solitaire violence.
The venerable game of Solitaire is one of the first card games that most people ever learned to play, as well as one of the very first computer games. Solitaire has appeared on the Windows operating system since it’s inception and has given possibly billions of people fun and frustration. My goal in writing the Solitaire Strategy Guide is to try to reduce the level of frustration people feel while playing Solitaire, help them learn how to beat Solitaire and give them a solid understanding of Solitaire’s mechanics. Solitaire is still widely known even after all of these years to be one of the harshest games ever created to beat. I remember playing Solitaire for many hours in my dad’s office as a child while he did work. So much of my time was spent being annoyed at my inability to figure out the solution that after a while I developed a loathing for Solitaire. Now though, I have made my peace after finding out how to beat it.
The most popular variation of Solitaire is a game called “Klondike”, first developed by a fellow named Wes Cherry. Unfortunately for Wes Cherry, he neglected to negotiate a royalty agreement and has never received the financial benefits from the global success of his game. Klondike is the default version of Solitaire that comes preloaded on the Windows OS. In Klondike Solitaire, unlike the Vegas version, a single card is turned over from the deck at a time and a
player is allowed to go through the deck as many times as they please. The player achieves points by playing his cards to the Solitaire board and also to the stacks beginning with Ace that a player can create during play. Most people who actually spend much time playing Solitaire look like the fellow to the right ;).
In order to achieve the maximum probability of success when playing Solitaire, it is important to the clearly outlined Solitaire Strategy Guide defined below. The hints that appear first are most important to the Solitaire player’s success and if you follow them victory will come.
SOLITAIRE STRATEGY GUIDE
Solitaire Strategic Rules:
-Always try to play an Ace or 2 as quickly as you can in Solitaire. These cards quickly give points and don’t assist in the game play itself.
-Always make the move that will free up one of your upside down cards in Solitaire.
-Move cards from one column to another at no time except when it allows an upside down card to be freed or makes your face up piles smoother.
-Always free an upside down card first from the largest pile of upside down cards.
-Never ever completely clear one of the slot piles unless you have a King immediately available to take its place.
-Do not move a card numbered 5-8 unless at least one of the following will be the case after you make the play:
- You have no other options to continue playing (uh-oh, spaghetti O!)
- Making such a play will immediately allow you to turn an upside down Solitaire card rightside up.
- No other cards have yet been played to the column in question
- The column is smooth with it’s next highest odd/even partner in the column
-When working to build your Ace stacks in Solitaire with cards other than your 2 or Ace do not do it unless the following applies:
- You will be clearing a spot immediately for a King to sit.
- Your decision will not interfere with the next card in the order of protection.
- It will allow a slot to open up for a same color card pile transfer that allows an upside down card to be turned over.
- It will enable you to make a play that let’s you flip over an upside down Solitaire card.
-When you reach a stalemate point (you think that all of the cards you need are upside down and there is no possible way for you to reach them through further Solitaire play), you should immediately begin to move any cards you can to your Ace stacks. You probably will need to rearrange your piles of cards in order to free up certain cards and hopefully you will be able to clear a Solitaire pile enough to be able to reach high enough in the existing pile to substitute for your necessary covered card.
Solitaire Strategy Discussion:
The above rules should be simple enough to follow for anyone who has played Solitaire for a solid amount of time. Learning how to beat Solitaire is an ambitious goal, but it can be done if you follow my advice in the Solitaire Strategy Guide. Most people already know to immediately play the Ace or 2 up to the Ace stacks, but many people don’t realize that they should hold onto the other cards for usage later.
At any point in the rules or in further discussion I refer to “freeing a down card” this means that the Solitaire player needs to get at one of the upside down card in the 7 initial stacks available for play.
You may be wondering to yourself, “Why is that gorgeous woman to the left on this Solitaire Strategy Guide?” The answer is that instead of learning the ultimate Solitaire Strategy, you should be doing something that will help you land a catch like her. Hahha, just kidding- we all know women LOVE Solitaire nerds.
The game of Solitaire initially starts play with seven cards facing up with increasingly larger stacks under each one of them and the rest of the cards in a big deck pile. The goal is to move all of the cards from the deck pile and from the seven piles beneath it to the four Ace stacks that are available. You will lose if you cannot turn over the cards in the 7 piles, so the number one objective when you play Solitaire should be to free up those cards. I say that you should free up those upside-down cards from the largest pile possible because if freeing up the upside-down Solitaire cards is the most important objective, then why shouldn’t you dig into the pile with the most cards as soon as possible?
Further Solitaire Strategy:
Try to move as many cards in the columns as you can before resorting to using the deck cards when you play Solitaire. At the start of most games of Klondike Solitaire, there are a few moves that you will be able to make immediately without getting any cards from the deck. When you move these Solitaire cards around, you will expose the upside down cards beneath them and be able to turn them over. The more upside down cards that you are able to flip over immediately, the stronger your chances will be of winning your game. When you do your flipping earlier it lessens the chances that you will overlook an obvious column to column move, which may be hidden to you later in the game when you have a massive pile of cards and can’t quite see everything immediate.
Solitaire is a game of probability contemplation. The key word here is “contemplation”. The longer you think before you make obvious moves, the better. Why? Because there may be certain strategies you can take that will free up more cards at once than you would have immediately thought of. Sometimes the obscure path is the ideal one, at least in Solitaire.
In the midst of a game of Solitaire, it is best to make a wise choice on which King to move. When you empty out a column completely, you are able to move a King off of another card pile to the empty slot. Make sure you choose which King you move here well. You should move the King on the largest pile of upside down Solitaire cards first, then the other kings on top of hidden cards and your last possible option should be to move a King from the deck pile of cards. You should even consider skipping a king in a deck pile of cards to continue playing the game on the assumption you may hit a King in one of the upside down card piles.
Another important Solitaire strategy to consider using is called Laddering. Laddering in Solitaire involves moving your card stacks among the seven primary piles in order to free up space when you become stuck. A good Laddering strategy can help you uncover upside down cards that you previously did not think you would be able to reach.
Solitaire Strategy when you Deal Three:
In Solitaire on the computer, you have the option to either deal one or three cards at a time. Dealing three cards seems to be significantly more difficult for novices than dealing one at a time. Since three cards are dealt at a time, you can only
move the card on top and the other two cards remain stuck beneath it until you can find a spot. An excellent trick though is to realize that you can change the order of the entire deck by playing one card down to the seven slots. The next time you go through the Solitaire deck, the order the cards come up again will be changed. If you plan ahead, you can set it up so that you can reach needed cards by playing a single Solitaire card and then cycling through the deck again until you reach the needed card.
Now that you have finished reading the Ultimate Solitaire Strategy Guide, you are now properly equipped to go kick some Solitaire butt! Remember: Solitaire is just a silly game and you should be having fun while you play! Go out there and use your knowledge of how to beat Solitaire wisely!
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August 12th, 2008 at 3:03 am
One thing that I do when I play solitaire is to re-deal until I have a starting point where I can move at least 3 cards either up or around to a different stack.