Free Solitaire Games

The Solitaire Games of Skill Sampler consists of twenty games extracted from the Solitaire Games of Skill collection discussed on the home page of this website. The sampler has no time limits or limitation of features. It represents twenty free solitaire games offered with no strings attached. These games are all related to popular solitaire games and are described below. Each game is listed under the popular game to which it is related.

• ACCORDION
  
  Squeeze Box is a version of Accordion that starts the game with all 52 cards visible in a row as seen in the screen shot at the right. The object of the game is to get all the cards into one pile. Cards may be built on cards two positions to the left, if the cards are of the same rank or color. Cards which can be built on other cards are marked with light blue in the screen shot. If all the cards of a given rank can be moved to the right of all the rest of the cards, they can be used to consolidate all the cards into one pile. These cards moved to the right of all the cards are called sweeper cards. In order to win Squeeze Box, it is crucial to pick the best rank for the sweeper cards. The Choose Sweeper Rank dialog box shown in the screen shot lists the ranks with their scores. The scores are a measure of how far to the right the cards of given rank are. Generally the lower the score, the better the rank is for sweeper cards. The cards having the highlighted rank in the dialog box are marked with orange strips so that the player can easily spot their locations. Looking at the location of the cards for various ranks could indicate that the best sweeper rank is not the rank with the lowest score. After the sweeper rank is chosen, the sweeper cards keep their orange strips.




• PYRAMID
  
  Pyramid Cell is a combination of the Pyramid and FreeCell games. See the screen shot at the right. Available cards in the pyramid can be moved to the cells in the upper left. Cell cards can be paired and removed with other cell cards or available pyramid cards. Pyramid cards marked with dark blue are cards that cover cards that could be used to pair and remove the blue covering card. Cards marked with light blue are cards that could be paired and removed with the available cards taking spaces in the cells into account. If all the cards in the pyramid are marked with light blue the game is won and clicking on the top of the pyramid will remove all the cards. Even if the game is won, it is fun to continue playing manually card by card until the top card is reached. Games which are won at the start with all the cards marked with light blue are thrown out.




• YUKON
  
  Canadian Patience is has the same rules for building on the tableau that Yukon has. It differs from Yukon in that while all the tableau cards are faceup, cards are dealt from a hand to a wastepile. Thus the hidden cards are in the hand and wastepile and not in the tableau.




• PENGUIN
  
  Free Flipper differs from Penguin only in that three of the cards at the top of the foundation sequence and two of the cards one rank below the top of the foundation sequence are placed on the cells at the start of the game. The cell cards one rank below the top of the sequence each match in suit with one of the cell cards at the top of the sequence. Thus five of the seven cells are useless until spaces can be created in the tableau where cell cards can be moved. For example, in the screenshot the beginning foundation rank is seven. Thus five of the seven cells are filled with cards of ranks five and six. None of the cell cards can be moved to the tableau until a space is created.




• LA BELLE LUCIE
  
  La Belle Cell is a version of La Belle Lucie with only one deal but with a cell where cards can be moved. A card on the cell can be moved back to the tableau if it is not a king or sent to a foundation.




• SHAMROCKS
  
  Four Leaf Clover is the same as Shamrocks except that the game starts the with the four aces already placed on the foundations. Thus four of the eighteen columns start with only two cards instead of three making for an easier game to win.




• BUFFALO BILL
  
  The layout of Pick is similar to the layout of FreeCell. But there is no building of cards on the tableau. Cards can only be moved to the cells or foundations. In addition to the top tableau cards being available, up to seven cards can be extracted from below the top cards. When these cards are extracted, gaps in the tableau are formed as seen in the accompanying screen shot. Cards above these gaps become available. When a top card or a card above a gap is moved, the movement does not count toward the seven allowable extractions mentioned above.




• MISS MILLIGAN
  
  Free Space is a one deck game which combines elements of FreeCell and Miss Milligan. As in FreeCell all the cards are dealt at the beginning of the game. As in Miss Milligan only kings can fill spaces in the tableau. To offset this disadvantage, a single cell can hold more than one card in sequence as in Miss Milligan. There are only three cells.




• PENDULUM
  
  Long Pendulum differs from Pendulum in that it has nine tableau columns instead of eight. Also six of the cards on the top row instead of just two can be built upon by any available card. In the screenshot cards with dark blue squares can be built on tableau cards. Cards with light blue cards can be built on the foundations. The Choose Building Interval dialog box shown in the screenshot allows the player to see the patterns of dark and light blue squares for a given building interval. Thus the player can more quickly and easily choose the right building interval. The table in the upper right corner gives the sequence of building once the building interval is established.




• SPIDER
  
  The object of Autumn Leaves is the same as Scorpion, assemble all four suits in sequence in four columns in the tableau. Cards are dealt to the tableau as in Spider, but unlike in Spider only same suit building is permitted. But any card can go on a card of higher rank as long as the suits are the same.




• QUEEN OF ITALY
  
  King of Italy is a version of Queen of Italy which allows the player to choose any rank as the beginning foundation rank unless that rank would make the game unwinnable based on the blocks in the reserve. To offset this advantage there are 16 cards in the reserve instead of 11. The Select Foundation dialog box in the screen shot shows that only ranks 3, 4, and 5 as the beginning foundation ranks have winnable games. Cards in the reserve which cover a card lower in rank which could be used to move them to a foundation are marked with a yellow star as seen in the upper left corner of the screen shot. These cards need to be removed from the reserve as soon as possible. The game is lost if a yellow star card covers the only card of a given lower rank that could be used to move it to a foundation. Cards are marked with a light blue square if they can go on a foundation. Cards that can be built on or under a tableau card are marked with a dark blue square. The table seen in the screenshot below indicates which cards have yet to be dealt as determined from the face-up cards.




• FREE CELL
  
  Double Tall Towers is a two deck version of FreeCell where only kings can fill tableau spaces. Because of the kings only rule, indiscriminate building can cause cards to become inaccessible.




• FORTRESS
  
  Superfortress is a two deck version of Fortress shown in the screenshot at the right. Normally this game would overwhelm the average player. But the number of a column where a space can be made is given under the Tools menu. In this case a space can be made in column 5. If a space cannot be made, the game is thrown out and the player never sees it. Furthermore cards that can be built on the tableau are marked with dark blue squares. Cards that can be built on the foundations are marked with light blue squares. With the blue squares helping in making strategy, the average player can handle this formidable layout. About 60% fewer mouse clicks than normal are needed to play this game since cards in suit sequence or sequences of blue cards can be moved with a single mouse click. The moves resulting from the single mouse click are all legal and take into account spaces and intermediate building on columns.




• CANFIELD
  
  Vault is like Canfield, the major differences being that there are four wastepiles instead of one and there are no redeals. Cards are dealt one by one from the hand to the wastepiles. With four wastepiles there is considerable skill involved in placing cards from the hand. Some unwinnable games are thrown out.




• BABETTE
  
  Babe combines FreeCell and Babette. There is only one deal instead of three. At the end of the deal, five cells appear where cards can be placed. These five cells appear along the right margin of the screen shot at the right.




• GOLF
  
  The game Basketball is the same as Golf except that the tableau has eighteen columns of two cards instead of seven columns of five cards making for a much easier game to win.




• OSMOSIS
  
  When dealing three cards at a time from the hand towards the end of a Peek game, a hand card can cover and keep inaccessible the very card needed for it to be built on a foundation. To get around this problem, this version of Peek allows the player to fill spaces in the stockpiles with hand cards making for a more winnable game.




• VIRGINIA REEL
  
  Shenandoah is an easier version of Virginia Reel also known as Cavalcade where wastepile cards can fill a space in the tableau. The key to winning Shenandoah is keep valuable cards from being buried in the wastepiles. This is done by creating spaces in the tableau where wastepile cards can be placed. Especially valuable are wastepile cards that when built on foundations can be used to pick up cards in the tableau and thereby create spaces. These wastepile cards are marked by a dark blue colored square as seen in the screenshot below. The probability of a space being made in the tableau on the next deal is shown in the upper right corner of the screenshot. This probability could be calculated by the player based on the cards already dealt. If this probability is low the game could be lost. The probability could help to decide which cards should go on an empty tableau space. The number of spaces which can be made in the tableau is displayed as the tableau to foundations number seen in the upper right corner of the screenshot. It is important to keep this number as high as possible. If when a wastepile card is placed on the foundations this number decreases the player might want to reconsider the wastepile card placement. The foundation and tableau cards tend to be mixed together. The foundation cards of rank 2, 3, or 4 are marked with orange to make spotting foundation cards easier. Furthermore cards that are built on foundations do not overlap completely. This enables the player to distinguish between tableau cards and cards built on foundations. All cards that can go on foundations are marked with a light blue colored square. This saves the player a lot of tedious scanning. If a wastepile column has a card which covers a card of the same suit and lower rank which could be used to build it on a foundation, that column is labeled as being blocked. These potential blocks should be removed as quickly as possible. The table seen in the screenshot below indicates which cards have yet to be dealt as determined from the faceup cards.




• TOURNAMENT
  
  The key to winning Tournament is filling the reserve with cards which have a good chance of being sent to the foundations on subsequent deals and thus making a space in the reserve. These cards are one rank away from being able to be built on the foundations and are marked by dark blue colored squares as seen in the screenshot below. Sometimes it is helpful to fill every space in the reserve with a card. However if there are no spaces in the reserve and spaces are not quickly created on subsequent deals, the game can be lost. The probability of a space in the reserve being created on the next deal is displayed as seen in the upper right corner of the screenshot. This helps in deciding whether or not to completely fill the reserve with cards. The number of redeals left, the number of deals left in the present redeal, and the number of cards to be dealt in the next deal are displayed on the menu bar as seen in the screenshot. Thus the player is not left guessing how far along he is in the game. All cards that can go on the foundations are marked by light blue colored squares. This saves tedious searching of the wastepiles and helps the player to know from which wastepile columns it is best to remove cards. The cards on the foundations do not overlap completely thus allowing the player to move several foundation cards to a different foundation with one click. The table seen in the screenshot below indicates which cards have yet to be dealt as determined from the face-up cards is seen in the lower right corner of the screenshot.




• DOUBLE YUKON
  
  Double Yukon has fewer columns and more facedown cards than the usual version of the game, making for a more challenging experience. Cards which can be used to make a space are or uncover a face down card are crucial. If not on the top of a tableau column, cards which can make a space or uncover a face down card are marked with an orange strip. In the Yukon screen shot at the right, the black four in column 7 is marked with orange. It can be used to pick up the black three which covers the facedown cards in column 6.