Solitaire - a Classic Game that Never Fades!

The pandemic has made almost everyone to be more active online. Some people who'd been staying at home for years or people who are quarantined get bored and stressed, so they rely on social media, binge-watching movies or TV series, and playing online games to calm their minds. I am one of them; doing these things keeps us entertained and diverts our minds from the current health crisis for a while. 

So, aside from watching Korean and Chinese TV series, I also love to play online games during my free time. One of the games that I missed playing is the Solitaire game; I remember it was one of the first games I played when we had our first computer way back in the late '90s. This old-school card game is quite addictive because it's a challenging game, plus it helps improve my mental skills and calms my mind. 

Among my favorites are Classic Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, and Pyramid Solitaire. 

The goal of the Classic Solitare game is to stack the cards into sequences. These sequences are based on suits and rank. For example, the cards will be stacked K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,  and A with no mixed suits.  Sounds easy, right? 

The rules of Classic Solitaire are:

• Cards are arranged from left to right, with the bottom-most card of each pile placed face-up.
• Move cards from the Table to the Foundations, beginning with the Ace of each suit.
• The draw pile is the source of new cards. Only one card at a time can be drawn. 
• Cards of a lower consecutive rank can be moved below a card of a higher rank, but only if the cards are of a different color.
• The game is over when all cards are cleared or if there are no moves possible.

In Classic Solitaire, all four suits are used. In Spider Solitaire, the number of suits can vary depending on your level. One suit is beginner, two is intermediate and three or four is expert level. 

In Spider Solitaire, cards must be of the same suit in order to place them in sequential order if you want to be able to move that run of cards. You can stack different suits, but then you won't be able to move them as a group.

In Classic Solitaire, the sequenced cards must be alternating red and black suits. 

Cards from the Reserve. In Classic Solitaire, players deal with a single card from the pile. In Spider Solitaire, you deal a single card to each column in the Table or Tableau. 

Spider Solitaire is arguably the most difficult of all Solitaire games. It has been estimated that the most expert players can only win around 50% of the time as many games are simply impossible to win. 

Pyramid Solitaire differs from Classic Solitaire in that the cards are arranged in a pyramid layout. The object of the game is to remove pairs of cards that add up to a total of thirteen from a pyramid arrangement of twenty-eight cards.

The rules of Pyramid Solitaire are:

• The game is played with one 52 card deck.
• Deal cards to form a pyramid, starting with a row of one card, followed by a row of two cards, and so on, down to a final row of seven cards.
• The pyramid will consist of twenty-eight cards in total shown face-up.
• Pair cards to total thirteen. These pairs are moved from play. 
• Kings can be removed without pairing, as Kings are worth thirteen points. 
• Only open cards can be paired. 
• When you can't make another move, from the pyramid or from the draw and waste pile, and you have no more deals left, the game is lost. 
• The game is won when all cards are removed from the pyramid. 

I really enjoyed playing Solitaire games, you might not have thought about it, but this game also teaches us about decision making which we can apply in our life. ;)

Aside from playing Solitaire, I also love playing other games such as the Hidden Object Games and Word Games.

So far, these are some of the games that I liked and keep me entertained at home. For more free online games that are fun to play, check out https://www.solitaire.org/free-online-games.