The object of 1 Card 3 Pass Patience Solitaire is to put every card on the solitaire board into the four foundations at the top right of the solitaire game. Cards within the foundation are arranged by suit: Spades, Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds. Start each foundation with the Ace and work in ascending order from there all the way to King.
Russian Bank is a competitive patience game for two players. It is over 100 years old: for example it is described under the name Zank-Patience in the German Illustrirtes Buch der Patiencen, Breslau 1884/85. It is played in Britain and North America, and is also popular in France, where it is called Crapette. In Germany it is also known as Streitpatience or Schikanös–Patience. In North America it is sometimes known as Stop or Touch, because when a player makes an illegal move, or in some versions even touches a card that cannot legally be moved, the player's opponent can stop the play and take over. In the Middle East it is known as Tonj (sometimes spelled Tunj, Tonge or Tunge).
The Patience Card Game is one of those games. Called “Solitaire” in the US, Patience a card game that combines skill and creativity with its namesake, making it an intriguing option. Some historians believe that notable figures like Napoleon played the game, and today there are over 250 different known variations. Jan 18, 2018 The Patience Card Game is one of those games. Called “Solitaire” in the US, Patience a card game that combines skill and creativity with its namesake, making it an intriguing option. Some historians believe that notable figures like Napoleon played the game, and today there are over 250 different known variations.
There are two players and two standard 52-card packs are needed, one for each player. It is convenient to use packs with different backs, because they become mixed during the play and need to be separated when the play ends, ready for the next game.
Each player thoroughly shuffles the other player's pack.
Each player deals from his own pack a pile of 12 cards face down, and a 13th card face up on top of it. This stack is called the player's reserve and is placed to the player's right.
Next, each player deals 4 cards face up in a column above the reserve, with no overlapping, starting with the position furthest away from the player. These four cards are known as houses and the eight houses (four dealt by each player) are collectively known as the tableau. The two columns of four cards should have a space at least two cards wide between them, to leave room for the eight foundation piles which will be built from aces in this space. During the play, all eight houses of the tableau and all eight foundation spaces are common property and can be used by both players.
Each player will have 35 cards left over which are placed in a face-down pile on the left (at the end of the opponent's column of houses). These cards are known as the player's hand. This deal produces a symmetrical layout as shown in the following diagram. The space between the hand and reserve is used to store the player's waste pile, which is formed during the play.
PLAYER B B's waste pile | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
B's reserve (13 cards) top card face-up | B's hand (35 cards) face down | ||||
Four single face-up tableau cards dealt by B | Four single face-up tableau cards dealt by A | ||||
A's hand (35 cards) face down | A's reserve (13 cards) top card face-up | ||||
A's waste pile PLAYER A |
Note: the literature on this game uses a variety of different terms to describe the various piles of cards.
The ambiguity of the words 'stock' and 'talon', which have different meanings for different authors, is unfortunate, and I have therefore avoided these terms in this description.
The object is to be the first player to get rid of all the cards from one's hand, waste pile and reserve. This is achieved by playing them to the foundations or tableau, and by loading them onto the opponent's reserve and waste pile.
The player with the lower-ranking top reserve card begins play; for this purpose cards rank from King (high) to Ace (low). If the reserve cards are equal then the house cards next to each player's reserve are compared, and if these are also equal then the next house card, and so on; the player with the lower-ranking house card plays first. Players then take alternate turns until a player wins by having no reserve cards, no waste cards and no hand cards left, or until the game reaches a stalemate where both players find that no further plays from their reserve or hand cards are possible.
A player's turn consists of a series of moves of cards around the layout, according to strict rules. Each move consists of taking one available card and playing it by placing it onto a house of the tableau, a foundation pile or your opponent's reserve or waste pile, according to the building rules. Moves are subject to a number of priorities and certain moves are compulsory.
At each turn you may make as many moves as you can and wish to, but must end your turn when you have no legal continuation or when your opponent stops you because you have made an error in play.
During your turn, the following cards are initially available:
Further cards become available as follows:
Available cards can be played one at a time to any of the eight foundation piles, any of the eight houses of the tableau, or to the opponent's reserve or waste pile, provided that the following building rules are respected, and subject to the priorities and compulsory moves described later:
Certain moves are compulsory, and there are some moves that must be made in preference to others. The priorities and compulsory moves are as follows:
If you violate any of the above priority rules, or if you omit a compulsory move, or if you make any other kind of illegal move (such as a violation of the building rules), your opponent may call 'Stop!' and explain what you have done wrong.
In other words, your opponent may call 'Stop!' if you do any of the following:
After a few moves, the layout could look like this:
PLAYER B | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
PLAYER A |
Please note the following points:
If you manage to play all your cards, so that you have none left in your hand, reserve, or waste piles, you win and the game is over. You score 30 points for winning the game, plus 1 point for each card left in your opponent's hand and waste piles, plus 2 points for each card left in your opponent's reserve.
If a stalemate is reached in which neither player can play from his reserve or hand, whoever has the lower count of remaining cards (counting as usual 1 point for each card left in the hand or waste pile, plus 2 points for each card left in the reserve) scores the difference between the counts of the two players. There is no 30 point bonus for winning the game in this case.
After each game the packs are separated and shuffled ready for a new game. The first player to reach or exceed an agreed target score - for example 300 points - in as many games as it takes, is the overall winner.
Many play that the top card of your own waste pile is available on the same basis as the outermost cards of the houses. In this version the top card from your waste pile must be move to a foundation pile when possible, and can be moved to a house or loaded onto your opponent's waste or reserve when it fits.
Some play with an initial reserve of 11 or 12 cards rather than 13. the hands are then correspondingly larger.
There are several alternative ways to decide who starts:
Some play with stricter priority rules, in addition to the rules given above.
Variant Tableau: Some lay out the tableaux as follows: first each player places a face down card in each house, beginning with the space nearest to the player's reserve; then a face up card is dealt to each house, overlapping the face down card. When a face down card is exposed by moving away the face up card that was on top of it, the face down card is turned face up. In the play, the three strict rules above are observed, together with a fourth rule:
Some play with an even stricter version of rule 1 above, that if any card buried in the tableau can be released and moved to a foundation pile, this must be done in the fewest possible number of moves.
On the other hand, some people play with less strict priority rules. For example, some allow you to turn over your hand card at the start of your turn, or even to look at it privately before your turn starts, while the other person is still playing.
Some play that your whole reserve is initially face down. At your first turn, you must make any possible moves from the tableau to the foundation piles before turning up the top card of your reserve. Subsequently, as soon as the top card of your reserve is played, you turn up the next card if it is face down.
David Crossley describes a more permissive version of the game in which cards can be moved around the tableau not only singly but in groups. This must be done in such a way that the cards in each house always form a descending sequence in alternating colours, and whenever a tableau card is moved any cards that are cards piled on top of it must be moved with it as a group.
On the website http://home.arcor.de/ebwegner/Zank-Pat.htm (archive copy) Eberhard Wegner described a simplified two-player variant (perhaps for children or for beginners?) and a variant for three players.
Jean-François Bustarret's Jeux de Cartes web site includes a description of Crapette in French.
With Mari J Michaelis's Spiteful Bank computer program you can play Russian Bank against the computer or against a live opponent over the Internet.
A free online Russian Bank game is available at www.zankpatience.de and another at www.zankpatience.net.
Bahu Aba Baker has written a Tonj app for Android.
Card games for one player are called Patience in Britain and Solitaire in America. The web site pagat.com is devoted mostly to games for more than one player, but on this page I have provided some links to sites which specialise in one-player games. Some of these sites contain rules or analysis, and many of them provide software, since these solitary games are particularly suitable for play against a computer. If you have further links or information that should be included on this page, please let me know.
This page deals with solitaire (patience) games played with playing-cards. There are separate pages for:
Here is a link to an article by David Parlett on the Origins and History of Patience / Solitaire.
Randy Rasa's Solitaire Central site contains a wide range of information, including a searchable Solitaire Rulebook with descriptions of numerous games, a searchable collection of reviews of computer solitaire games for download, plus reviews of online solitaire games.
Here is an archive copy of Gordon Bower's Solitaire pages, which have rules of several solitaires, old and new, and investigations of the probability of winning.
For information about Freecell, see Michael Keller's Freecell site, including a tutorial, a catalog of solutions and free computer program Freecell Pro. A further collection of Freecell links can be found at Freecell.org.
Michael Keller also runs the Solitaire Laboratory, which includes a section on Giza.
The rules section of the BVS Solitaire site has rules for hundreds of solitaire games.
Boris Sandberg's BVS Solitaire is a collection of 487 different solitaire games for Windows. He has also published BVS Solitaire for Mac OS X.The software allows the user to create new games by modifying the rules of the included games. The author writes: 'You'll be able to learn solitaires not found elsewhere. BVS Solitaire Collection gives you a plethora of statistical and scoring screens. You can track your performance and progress in playing solitaire about as completely as many people use a computer to track their finances. And you can publish your personal statistics on the BVS Solitaire Collection web site to appear in the top scores list.'
BVS also runs sites giving rules and strategy tips for Freecell and Spider, with free trial downloads of these games.
EndersGame's What You Should Know About Solitaire Card Games is the first of a series of articles tracing the history and terminology of Solitaire/Patience games and their recent success as popular computer games.
1st Free Solitaire for Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/2003 is a free 'lite' version of Boris Sandberg's BVS Solitaire, consisting of 7 popular solitaire card games: Yukon, FreeCell, Klondike, Flower Garden, Nestor, Bisley, Carpet.
The Single Player Card Games page of the Card Game Heaven site has rules of several Solitaire games.
Thomas Warfield's Pretty Good Solitaire is a collection of 770 solitaire games for Windows. Users can have their win/loss statistics posted on the web site. The site also contains the rules for all these games. From the same site you can also obtain Action Solitaire, in which you play for points against the clock in timed rounds, and Pretty Good Mahjongg, a collection of solitaire games using Mah Jong and other tile sets, including the well-known tile matching game, and also Mah Jong tile solitaires based on Freecell, Spider and Klondike.
SolSuite by TreeCardGames Inc. is a high quality Windows shareware collection more than 630 different Solitaire games including Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, Pyramid, Golf, Busy Aces, Canfield, Forty Thieves, Diplomat, Four Seasons, Poker Solitaire, Flower Garden, Rouge et Noir, Scorpion, Monte Carlo, Sultan, La Belle Lucie, Gaps and several original games. Features include unlimited undo and redo, Snapshot position and Undo to snapshot, comprehensive statistics, customisable playing-cards and backgrounds, and an editor that lets you change the rules of any game.
HOYLE Card Games for Windows or Mac OS X includes a collection of solitaire games, which are also available as a separate package.
Microsoft's Solitaire, a computer version of Klondike Solitaire created by Wes Cherry, was included with every version of Windows from 3.0 to 7. For later versions of Windows the Microsoft Solitaire Collection is available as a free download.
Aisleriot Solitaire is a free collection of over 80 solitaire games programmed in the GNOME scripting language and available for Linux, Windows and Hildon platforms. A manual is available that lists and describes the games.
Amy Bassett's Spider Solitaire site provides several free HTML5 versions of Spider Solitaire that can be played online in a web browser.
Laura Ockel's Tesseract Mobile publishes Android apps using a dynamic card design with different styles for exposed and partly concealed cards to improve readability. There is a Solitaire Free Pack with over 100 games and a Solitaire Mega Pack with over 250 games.
Zonora Technologies offers several shareware collections of solitaire games with comprehensive statistics and save, undo and replay facilities.
Solitaire.com is an English language edition of the Dutch site PatienceSpelen.nl with around 40 free games that can be played online in your browser; a German edition is also available at KartenSpielen.de. The Freecell game on these sites has a mechanism and game numbers consistent with the Microsoft Windows version.
Emily Krieger's Solitaire Cardgames site offers a selection of free online games along with sections of the history and startegy of solitaire.
James Yates has written pages on Solitaire Strategy and Vegas-style Scoring, which discuss the strategy of Klondike Solitaire.
From Andreas Sauer's site you can download the AS-Solitaire package for Windows which offers 120 games and a huge range of card designs.
WebTV users: the following sites provide Solitaire games that can be played on-line - no downloads and no Java required!
Here are the rules for Cribbage Solitaire, in which you play Cribbage against the deck.
You can play Solitaire at GameDuell. - they offer a range of Solitaire games that can be played for fun or for money.
Rick Holzgrafe's Semicolon Software publishes Solitaire Till Dawn, a collection of around 100 solitaire computer programs for the Macintosh, with rules and strategy tips.
Scott McNab's Card Games 4 Free site reviews a range of free Solitaire games.
You can download Miha's Windows shareware collection 18 card games for 1 player which includes Freecell, Four Seasons, Golf, Alternate, Canfield, Auld Lang Syne, Castles in Spain, Klondike, Ship shape and Bristol fashion, The Battle of Ladies, Son of fortune, The Beleaguered Castle, Bisley, Fortress, Grandpa's clock, Princ Albert, Quadrille and Raglan. The free version gives access to a limited selection of these - to play all 18 you need to register the package, which includes a facility for the user to add further games by specifying their rules in a text file.
Solitaired.com offers a large collection of free solitaire games that can be played online in a web browser.
John Punzak's EverydayGames.net has a collection of Java solitaire games which can be played in a web browser. They include Klondike, Spider, Scorpion, Pyramid, Canfield, Freecell and others.
TrapApps offers a wide range of free solitaire games to play online in a web browser.
Albert Henderson's Solitaire with Cards is a collection of free solitaires written in Javascript which can be played online in a web browser.
Here is an ad-free version of Holger Sindbaek's Solitaire Online where you can play Klondike, Spider and Freecell online in a web browser.
At the Solitaire Bliss site you can play Klondike, Spider, Freecell and Pyramid free online.
123 Free Solitaire is a freeware collection of solitaire games by TreeCardGames Inc. The same organisation also publishes several more free collections such as NetSolitaire and Spider Solitaire.
Dig Solitaire has a range of free online solitaire games.
At CardzMania.com you can play several solitaire games online: FreeCell, Klondike, Seahaven Towers, Spider and Yukon.
From Funkitron you can buy a Solitaire Kingdom Supreme - a variation of Klondike Solitaire for Windows or Mac in which the pack contains various bonus cards and key cards which confer special powers when discovered.
Solitr is a free open-source JavaScript-based Klondike game by Jo Liss.
DKM software offers an range of free online Solitaire games.
Game Colony offers Freecell, Solitaire and Rush-21 head to head games and multi-player tournaments, which can be played free or for cash prizes.
Here is a link to David Bernazzani's free Solitude for Windows software.
The shareware Absolutist Solitaire Studio has a range of solitaire games and a Solitaire Script language which allows you to design your own games and add them to the program.
PySol is a free open source collection of solitaire games which can run on Unix, Windows and Macintosh computers.. The original project by Markus Oberhumer officially ended in 2004, but was continued and extended by the PySol Fan Club. The collection now includes more than 1000 solitaire games.
At Solitaire Paradise, you can play verious solitaire games including Tri-Peaks Classic, a more skilful variation of the popular Tri-Towers solitaire game, the similar Golf Solitaire and also Tower Solitaire, a variation of Pyramid Solitaire in which one card can be placed in a temporary store, Forty Thieves and Thieves of Egypt.
At the free Solitaire100 site you can play Klondike, Spider, Pyramid and Freecell online your web browser - no download is required.
At Solitaire Mania you can play a number of free solitaire games online in your browser.
Laura Jensen has written a free Spider Solitaire game which can be played in a web browser with 1, 2 or 4 suits.
Code This Lab's HTML5 Spider, Freecell, Klondike and Pyramid solitaire games, which can be played in a browser, are available from Envato Market where you can play online or buy the code.
Amber Mango, a UK company based in York, offers Freecell3D, a 3D rendered version of Freecell with the emphasis on looks and features. The game features an animated solver and a the split-screen Race Mode where you compete against the computer to finish the same deal first.
Solitär Spielen has a selection of free online Solitaire games. Although the pages are in German, the game interfaces are in English.
Harpan.se is a Swedish site providing a range of Solitaire games that can be played online in a browser. 'Harpan' is the Swedish word for Patience or Solitaire.
North Star Solutions' Poker Challenge is a computer solitaire game for Windows in which the objective is to identify and remove high scoring poker hands from a playing-card layout.
Maurits van der Schee's AceCardGames site has twelve Flash solitaire games that can be played on line. (You will need to download the free Flash 7 player if you don't already have it).
DogMelon offers solitaire games for PC, Palm and eBookman.
Here are Rudy Muller's rules for Rangoon (also known as Station, Blue-Moon, Gaps, Montana Aces). The page also has details of his computer program for playing it.
The Italian site Solitari con le carte has rules and software for several games.
Here is John Kanold's SolKan32 for Windows,which plays about 200 different Solitaire games including several not found in other packages.
The Softgame Company's Funsol Solitaire plays hundreds of solitaire games.
The Solitaire Network has a collection of 30 Java Soliatire games that are free to play on line without registration.
Mike's Cards is a shareware collection of solitaire games for Macintosh and Windows computers. A freeware version Mike's Cards Lite is also available from the same site.
Solitaire Forever offers a collection of over 100 solitaire games with 3D graphics for Macs running OS X 10.2 or higher; they will run on PowerPC or Intel Macs but no longer work with OS 9.
Spielhalle24.net has several free Solitaire games that can be played online in a browser.
Solitaire King has several free solitaire games that can be played online in a browser.
Poki has a small selection of solitaire games that can be played online in a browser.
Pete Wiseman's Solitaire City offers ten Solitaire games for Windows, iOS and mobile devices (45 if variations are counted). These are timed games against the clock - the faster you play, the higher you score.
Mike Perry's Allgood Solitaire (formerly Poor man's Solitaire) for the Macintosh includes a range of games.
At playsolitaire-online.com you can play Klondike and 30 other solitaire games online in a browser.
Neon Games has some solitaire games that can be played online.
Klondike Solitaire can be played online at playsolitaire.io.
The Solitaire Bodies page has Klondike Solitaire games with pinup cards that can be played on line or downloaded.
Here is Brian Bain's Windows Solitaire program. Standard Solitaire but with a variety of card deck options and the possibility to design your own deck.
Rules (in French) for La loi Salique and Pyramide are available from Jean-François Bustarret's site.
Tim Winter's Game Suite a collection of nine solitaire card games - not traditional solitaire games but games in which you race against a clock.
Here are Mike Lalena's Java Games: Eleven Out, Fun21, Poker Flash, Quick21 and others. Again, these are games played against the clock. Most of them were originally developed for the coin operated touch screen game systems usually found at bars.
Note - links to Video Poker games have been moved from here to the Video Poker page. Links to Tile Matching games are now on the Tile Matching page.