How to Play Solitaire?
There are 4 main piles in a game of solitaire, and it helps you play the game if you know
what they are and what they do –
- The Stock. This is a pile of cards that start the game face
down.
You
will find them in the top left corner of the game.
- The Waste. This is the pile next to the stock on the upper
left
corner, and you’ll find these cards face up once in play.
- The Foundations. These are the four piles in the top right-hand
corner
– one for each suit: clubs (♣), diamonds
(♦), hearts (♥) and spades (♠).
- The Tableau. These are the 7 piles that are front and center
–
they make up the main table.
Setup
The Tableau piles are in order from 1 to 7, left to right. Pile 1 has one card, pile 2 has
2
cards. Each pile has an extra card, all the way up to pile 7, which has 7 cards. All the cards in
each
pile
on The Tableau are face down except the bottom one on each. Once you’ve dealt The Tableau
cards,
all
other cards are placed face down in The Stock. At the beginning of the game, The Foundations and The
Waste
are empty.
Objective
The idea behind the game is to turn all the cards face up through a series of allowed
moves
(which
are outlined below). The goal is to get all of the cards onto The Foundation pile from Tableau, in
the
correct suit: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K.
Allowed Moves
There are only certain moves you can make in a game of solitaire, and these are as follows
–
- Flip cards from Stock to Waste. You can flip a single card or
3
cards
at a time from Stock to Waste piles. Look in the Options to set the game at either 1 or 3 cards
to
flip.
- Move top card from Waste to Foundations. If the top card can move
from
Waste to Foundations, then you are able to drag this there. Remember you start with an Ace and
move
upwards in number, always with the same suit.
- Move top card from Waste to Tableau. The Tableau is different to
the
Foundations. Here you move downwards in number, with an alternate color. So, for example, if
your
bottom
card on a Tableau pile is a red 7, then you can move a black 6 to it.
- Move a card from Foundations to Tableau. If you have the correct
card,
then
you can move it from Foundations back onto The Tableau to help you complete the game. Remember
that
the
objective is to get all the cards to The Foundations, so use this move sparingly. Some solitaire
games
don’t allow this move, but we do.
- Move cards from a Tableau pile to another. If your card or cards
from
one
Tableau pile can move across to another then this is an allowable move. Again, this is best seen
with an
example.If you have Red 7 on one pile, then you can move this to another pile that contains
Black 8,
as
the Red 8 receives the Black 7. Once you’ve moved these cards, the next card is flipped.
Similarly, if there's a black Queen on one pile and red Jack on another pile you can move J
to
Q.
If your move clears that pile empty then you can only start again on this empty pile with a
King.
- Flip a face down Tableau card. If you expose a Tableau pile by
moving
the
face up card elsewhere then you can flip the bottom face down card. Simply click and it will
show
face
up.
- Move a Tableau card to the Fountains. If you need to clear some
space
on
The Tableau then drag a card to The Fountains or simply double-click the card and it will
automatically
move to the right Fountain. Once you have upturned all the cards in The Tableau then the game
with
automatically move all of the cards to The Fountain and you have completed the game. The
foundation
starts with an Ace, followed by 2, 3, 4 of the same suit all the way up to King.
- Undo. You can Undo as many times as you please, but remember that
each
Undo
is counted as a move.