With Solitaire being one of the most celebrated card games of all time, a lot of fans turn back to this particular game whenever other card games become a bit too repetitive or overwhelming. After all, the sheer randomness and the potential approaches one could take in Solitaire definitely make for a delightful brain-teaser despite its simplified mechanics.
However, there are in fact “optimal” strategies to use when playing this card game. People who want to level up their game may want to look at a few Solitaire strategies for inspiration.
Learn The Table To Control Randomness
While this may seem like basic advice, it’s important to fully know how Solitaire's mechanics work. It helps to understand the nature of the piles in the game in order to “play” and tinker with their implications. At its core, the piles are the following:
- The Tableau: These are seven rows of cards on the table. Players build each pile by first revealing one face-up card and then putting six others in face-down positions. The next row will have a face-up card on the second pile beside five others face-down. Repeat this by always moving down one column until pile seven is finished.
- The Foundations: These are four piles through which all four suits must be built, with each one starting from its Ace and finishing with the King. These Foundations are blank at the start of a game. Whenever players get an Ace in the Tableau, the card goes to the Foundation. Only a Foundation with an Ace can be built upon.
- The Stock: Also called the “Hand,” these are extra cards that don’t get into the Tableau at the start of a game. Once the game begins, these cards are shuffled and put face down.
- The Talon: Also called “Waste,” these are cards from the Stock that can’t be played. These are placed beside the Stock in a face-up position.
Remember How The Card Plays Work
Building on the advice of learning the table, players should also remember how the card plays work throughout a Solitaire game. Since players more or less know which cards were revealed while building the Tableau, they should have an idea of what cards or suits are lacking in both the Foundations and their Tableau. Here’s how this can affect the basic mechanics:
- Tableau starts with Kings: Players can create an entirely new pile in the Tableau provided they have a King. It’s possible to recreate an empty Tableau pile as long as they all start with the King.
- Only alternates in the Tableau: Players can move around cards in the Tableau, provided they are in order and in separate colors. For instance, a Red 9 (R9) can go on top of a Black 10 (B10), but not vice versa.
- Transfer the whole stack in Tableau: Players cannot move an individual card located inside a stack in a Tableau pile. All cards after it must be moved as well. For instance, players have a stack of B10, R9, B8, and R7. If players want to move R9 to another Tableau stack, they need to move all the other cards below it (B8, R7 in this case). Likewise, R9 needs to be at the top of the revealed Tableau pile if they want to move it to the Foundation.
- Only the top of the Talon can be played: When players can’t do anything with the Tableau, they draw a card from the Stock. They can either play this card or draw another card. They can’t play any card that is below the current drawn card from the Stock. They can only play the card again once all Stock cards are played, put into the Talon, reshuffled, and replaced.
Remember The Must-Move Cards
Before anything else, it’s important for players to pay attention to which cards they will be revealing and if there should be knee-jerk reactions to them in regard to both the Tableau and the Stack. Doing these things as soon as possible can allow players to make faster moves. Likewise, understanding these knee-jerk reactions can help players do advanced plays:
- Aces: Whenever players get an Ace, they should put it in the Foundation board to unlock their piles as soon as possible.
- Deuces (2): When players get a Deuce or a 2, it helps to put them on top of their respective Aces in the Foundation pile. This can make the upward sequence much faster to accomplish.
- Kings: When players get a King, they should see whether it’s practical to move them into an empty Tableau pile.
Stack The Tableau With Color Mechanics
While it’s straightforward to create piles with the Tableau by alternating colored cards, there’s another layer of tactics here that should be considered. In order to play Solitaire more efficiently, players should be mindful of not only the color sequence but also the way their suits work when stacking on a pile.
Essentially, players should remember that the Kings in their Tableau dictate the color sequence of their intended stacks. Players need to focus on Tableau stacks with Aces that are already in Foundation. That way, players know that they’re going to build a Foundation pile the more they complete a particular sequence.
Reveal From Larger Piles First
When players begin Solitaire, the seventh pile or column will almost always have the largest number of hidden cards. Players should target this column first when it comes to revealing cards that could be used throughout the rest of the game.
This tip follows the logic that players have more options if they have more revealed cards in play. Given the option to distribute card stacks, players should try as much as possible to move face-up cards away from the largest piles so more of their hidden cards get revealed.
Distribute Piles Evenly As Much As Possible
While it can be satisfying to stack a lot of cards in a single pile, this means there won't be as many useful cards when players have to redistribute the pile to make room for new cards.
To avoid this mistake, players are advised to distribute their piles across the Tableau as often as possible. That way, players will be able to play more with new cards revealed from the Stock without risking having an unusable Tableau. Only stack multiple cards in a single pile if the purpose is to reveal a hidden card from another stack.
Distribute Similar Suits Across Stacks
Building upon the even allocation of tiles is the trick to approach suit distribution with a bit more finesse. While this can be a bit tricky to implement in the early game, being able to stack cards according to similar suits can pave the way to seamlessly finish a game by just alternating between the stacks. This is especially useful with Cards 4-8 since these five numbers are the trickiest to slot into both Foundation and Tableau piles.
At its core, it may help to create two stacks of two suits of different colors with different starting points. For instance, a left stack can alternate between Hearts (Red) and Clubs (Black), and the right stack can alternate between Clubs and Hearts. That way, it would be much easier to complete Foundation piles in sequence between these two suits.
Consider Stacking On Large Piles
Players can only use Kings on free cells, and it can be ridiculously difficult to fill these free spaces if there aren’t any Queens, Jacks, and other high-number cards available. As such, having a King on another pile can become both a temptation and a curse.
To avoid such a setback, players may want to consider building on that King while it’s still inside a pile of hidden cards. That way, they can still play for a few turns to see if they can build a considerable stack before they put the King (and its stack members) in play by creating a free cell. Think of this strategy as making use of the free real estate that a large pile offers, especially if players want to focus on another hidden pile.