Game Spotlight: Solitaire

Solitaire evokes memories of grandma sitting at her kitchen table for hours, steaming cup of coffee on one side, burning cigarette in a heavy glass ashtray on the other, rows of playing cards neatly arranged in the middle. I never understood the appeal as a kid, whittling away hours by yourself with a deck of cards. But, as I got older, I came to understand the enjoyment. The joy of keeping your mind busy with a deck of cards.

There are several versions and here are some of the best:

1. Klondike solitaire - The most popular version of solitaire played today. The goal of the game is to move all 52 cards in the deck into four-suit specific stacks, beginning with the ace.

In the setup for Klondike, a tableau of seven columns of cards is arranged on the table with the top card face up; the remaining cards forming a draw pile. As cards are exposed in the tableau columns or turned up from the draw pile, they can be moved to the foundation stacks in ascending order.

2. Golf solitaire - The lower you score, the better you do, just like the game of golf. This game's setup involves 35 cards in a tableau of face-up cards arranged in rows, with the other 17 cards forming a draw pile. The goal of the game is to remove all 35 cards from the tableau to a discard pile. The cards can be removed to join the last-placed card in the discard pile only if they are 1 point above, or 1 point below, the value of the most recently placed card on the discard pile.

3. Concentration - This version is also known as memory, or simply pairs. The starts with all of the cards laid face down on a surface and two cards are flipped face up over each turn. The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching cards.

4. Poker solitaire - This solitaire card game includes elements of poker. To start, players build a 5-by-5-card grid and then try to make the best possible poker hands in each row and column. Poker solitaire doesn’t really include any elements of other solitaire games.

As always, play more games!