Solitaire Card Games

Solitaire is a single player card game. There is a family of such card games that have more or less similar characteristics, but different details. In British English, Solitaire Card Games are called “patience” and in American English as “solitaire.” These games consist of dealing cards from a shuffled deck into a particular arrangement on the tabletop. The objective of the player is to reorder the deck by suit and rank. This is done by a series of moves by transferring cards from one place to another under some restrictions. In some games there is reshuffling of the deck or placement of cards in new or empty places.

Types of solitaire

There are many solitaire games. The most famous version is called “Klondike.” These games have been modified into two-player competitive games. The different versions of the game have rules of varying complexity, different skill levels and use one or more deck of cards. Most of these have been transformed to electronic form and can be played on the computer. The fundamental forms of Klondike solitaire and FreeCell are along with Windows operating system. A solitaire game is also present on all Apple iPods. It is possible to download solitaire collections from the Internet for free.

Examples of Solitaire Card games

Accordion uses one deck of playing cards. The aim of the game is to compress the total deck into a single pile similar to an accordion. In one variation of this game, the cards are laid one after another and quickly put to play. This game has an element of surprise as the player does not know the next card required to be played till all the possible plays are finished. In another variation, the cards are laid in a single line.

The Aces Up game requires very less amount of space. Four cards are dealt on the table. The player searches two or more cards of the same suit. When found, the lower card is discarded and the higher one is retained. In case three or four of the same suit are found, all the cards are discarded, with the exception of the highest card.

Amazon is played with an incomplete deck. The 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 6’s are removed. If the game is won, all queens are displayed on full view. Hence, all kings are also removed.

History

There are no historical records to determine the start of solitaire. Some scholars have formed the opinion that as English books pertaining to solitaire refer to French literature, solitaire has a French origin. The proof for such a conclusion is the reference of these games in books like La Belle Lucie, Le Loi Salique, and Le Cadran. It is thought that Napoleon also played solitaire in his exile. So, some games like Napoleon’s square, Napoleon at St. Helena etc are named after him. However, whether he invented them or only played them is not known. Lady Adelaide wrote “Illustrated Games of Patience” and published this in 1870. This is thought to be the first literature about solitaire.