Ultimate Book of Card Games: The Comprehensive Guide to More Than 350 Games (5 page)

Many of the best Solitaire games follow a similar recipe: 99 percent luck, 1 percent skill. Auld Lang Syne is a textbook example of this style. It’s all luck, precious little skill, and devilishly hard to win. Odds of winning are 1 in every 300 games.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck, and place all four aces on the table, face up. These are your foundations. Next, deal four cards from the stock, face up, immediately below the foundations.

WINNING
The object is to build each of the four foundations from ace to king in ascending rank but regardless of suit (X of diamonds-2 of clubs-3 of diamonds…J of spades-Q of spades-K of diamonds).

HOW TO PLAY
Auld Lang Syne, unlike most other Solitaire games, lets you build the four foundations from ace up to king regardless of suit. You also may play the top card from any tableau pile. The only restriction is that you may not move a card from one tableau pile to another; cards may be moved only from the tableau piles to the foundation piles. Once you can no longer move, deal four more cards from the stock onto your tableau piles.

There is no redeal of the stock pile. Once you exhaust the stock, the game is over, simple as that.

VARIATION 1: TAM O’SHANTER

Tam O’Shanter takes a game that is already very hard to win and makes it even harder (the odds of winning are now 1 in 10,000 games). It does so with one simple rule change: Do not deal the four aces at the start of the game. Instead, leave the foundations vacant until the aces are exposed during the normal course of play.

VARIATION 2: SIR TOMMY

If Tam O’Shanter makes the basic game harder to win, Sir Tommy adds a bit of skill to the basic game. The odds of winning are the same (about 1 in 300). It’s just that you now exert more control over how and where cards are played. Follow the basic rules of Auld Lang Syne, with one exception: rather than automatically dealing four cards at a time to the tableau piles, you may choose the pile onto which you place each card.

1. DIFFICULTY
   :
   medium
   
2. TIME LENGTH
   :
   short
   
3. DECKS
   : 2
   

Though Babette is not well known or widely played in the United States, it is challenging (odds of winning are 1 in 12 hands) and fast-moving, and well worth learning. The only drawback is that you need a large playing surface to arrange the thirteen rows of cards you’ll eventually need to manage.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with two fifty-two-card decks (104 cards total), and deal eight cards in a row, face up. This is your first set of tableau cards.

WINNING
The object is to build eight total foundation piles by suit: four piles up in rank from ace to king (X of diamonds-2 of hearts-3 of hearts…Q of hearts-K of hearts) and four piles down in rank from king to ace (K of diamonds-Q of diamonds-J of diamonds…2 of diamonds-A of diamonds).

HOW TO PLAY
After the initial deal, move exposed aces or kings to the foundations.

Once all eight foundation piles are started, deal a new row of eight tableau piles below the previous ones. It’s important to overlap the cards, because you may only play cards that are not touching another card on the bottom edge. For example, you may play 2 of clubs on A of clubs in the hand
in the example below
, but you may not play 3 of clubs on the A of clubs-2 of clubs foundation pile until the 8 of diamonds is played. Similarly, you may not play J of spades on Q of spades until 10 of spades is played.

Keep in mind that you may not build within or among tableau piles—you may build only from the tableau to the foundations.

Your stock will be exhausted after you deal twelve tableau rows. Fortunately, you are allowed one—and only one—redeal. Collect the tableau cards one column at a time, moving left to right. Then simply turn the stack over (do not shuffle), and deal a new row of tableau cards. You win the game by completely building all eight foundation piles before your second deal of stock cards is exhausted.

1. DIFFICULTY
   :
   low
   
2. TIME LENGTH
   :
   medium
   
3. DECKS
   : 1
   

Here’s a game that is easy to play but requires enough concentration to keep things interesting. Best of all, it offers a good chance of winning (about 1 in 3 hands should win). The name refers to the thirteen columns—a baker’s dozen—used to build the foundations.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck, and deal thirteen columns, each with four cards overlapping. Move any kings to the tops of their columns, so that no other cards start the game buried beneath a king: