Guest Author - Lynn Little

Needed Deck of Playing Cards

Players 1

Playing Time varies

There are several variations to the card game Solitaire. Klondike Solitaire is one of the more well-known card versions. Klondike Solitaire is probably the version most people associate with either Solitaire or Patience. While there are plenty of computer versions of Klondike Solitaire, it is still fun to play it with a deck of cards.

First you will need a deck of playing cards. Remove the jokers and count to make sure you have 52 cards. Next you will need a flat playing surface like a table or the floor. Shuffle the cards and then deal the cards face down into seven piles. The pile furthest left will have only one card. The next pile will have two cards. The furthest right pile will have seven cards. Flip over the top card of each pile.

The win Klondike Solitaire you will create four stacks of cards that will contain all of the cards in numerical value. You will need the Ace to begin a stack for that suit because in Solitaire the Ace has a value of one. Once you have placed the Ace of a suit, you can place the two and so forth. Until then, you create ordered piles with your seven stacks.

You can move a card to another stack as long as it is a different color and is the next card in sequence. For example, you could place the nine of diamonds onto a stack where the ten of clubs was the last card. Once you have an open column, you can move a King and all cards below that King into that slot.

Once you move a card, flip over the next card in the pile. Once you have no more move available to you, flip over a card from the deck. Some people prefer to flip one card at a time while some flip three at once, making a mini-stack that they have to use the last card flipped first. Some people prefer to run through the deck once, and if they haven't won the game they start a new game. Others like to flip over the discard pile and go back through the deck. Going through the deck once makes it harder to win at Solitaire. It's just a matter of personal preference.

To win the game, your four stack at the top of your playing area will contain all the cards from Ace to King. Winning at Solitaire is hard but is great fun. Even with all the computer games with their stunning graphics and game play, many people still play Solitaire on a regular basis. It's just fun and frustrating at the same time.