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Solitaire card games/Klondike

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This is one of the most well known solitaire games, in fact, you probably have played a variant of it on your computer, which probably is somewhat different from the original version.

  1. First, seven piles of cards are laid from left to right. Each pile begins with one upturned card. From left to right, each pile contains one more card than the last. The first and left-most pile contains a single upturned card, the second pile contains two cards (one downturned, one upturned), the third contains three (two downturned, one upturned), and so on, until the seventh pile which contains seven cards (six downturned, one upturned). The piles should look like the figure to the right at the beginning of every game.

The four foundations (light rectangles in the upper right of the figure) are built up by suit from Ace (low in this game) to King, and the tableau piles are built down by alternate colors. Partial or complete piles can be moved if they are built down by alternate colors also. Any empty piles can be filled with a King or a pile of cards with a King. The aim of the game is to build up a stack of cards starting with 2 and ending with King, all of the same suit. Once this is accomplished, the goal is to move this to a foundation, where the player has previously placed the Ace of that suit. Once the player has done this, they will have "finished" that suit, the goal being, of course, to finish all suits, at which time the player would have won. There are different variations of dealing the remainder of the deck including the following, which are some of the most common ways:

  • Turning three cards at once to the waste, either allowing three passes through the deck or placing no limit on passes through the deck.
  • Turning three cards at once, reversing the order of each group of three as the cards are dealt.
  • Turning only one card at a time, but only passing through the deck once.
  • Turning only one card at a time, but placing no limit on passes through the deck.
  • Turning three cards at once to the waste with no limit on passes through the deck, but allowing the player to switch once to a single pass through the deck one card at a time; after that single pass, however, the player cannot go back to turning three cards at a time and can turn over no more cards from the waste.

Variations

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As Klondike is one of the most well known solitaire games, you probably aren't surprised about the number of variants, below are a few:

  • In Agnes, the stock is dealt in batches of seven on reserve piles and every one is available. Furthermore, the bases of the foundations depends on the twenty-ninth card, which is dealt on the foundations.
  • In Easthaven (a.k.a. Aces Up), twenty-one cards are dealt into seven piles of three, two face-down and one face-up. A space in this game can only be filled by a king or any sequence starting with a king, and when a play goes to a standstill, seven new cards are dealt to the tableau, one top of each pile. Easthaven may include 2 or 3 card decks.
  • In Nine Across nine columns of cards are dealt, as opposed to the seven of conventional Klondike. The player can choose which cards to form the foundations; if one or more eights are exposed, for example, the player may decide to build on eights, and the piles are built up 8-9-10-J-Q-K-Ace-2-3-4-5-6-7. If eights are built on, sevens fill up spaces and so forth. The stock is dealt through one by one as many times as required.
  • In Thumb and Pouch, a card in the tableau can be built upon another that is any suit other than its own (e.g. spades cannot be placed over spades) and spaces can be filled by any card or sequence.
  • In Whitehead, all cards are dealt face up, building is by color (red on red, black on black), a sequence made up of cards that are of the same suit can be moved as a unit, and a space can be filled by any card or sequence.
  • In Westcliff, thirty cards are dealt into ten piles of three cards, two face down and one face up. A space in this game can be filled with any card or sequence.