Black Hole is a patience or solitaire card game. It is of the open builder type; its play is similar to Golf and Tri Peaks, but with a tableau of fans like that of La Belle Lucie. Invented by David Parlett, this game's objective is to compile the entire deck into one foundation. [1] [2]
The cards are dealt to the tableau in piles of three. The leftover card, dealt first or last, is placed as a single foundation called the Black Hole. This card usually is the Ace of Spades, but any card can do.
Only the top cards of each pile in the tableau are available for play and in order for a card to be placed in the Black Hole, it must be a rank higher or lower than the top card on the Black Hole, ignoring suit. This is the only allowable move in the entire game. Aces and Kings are considered consecutive, thus allowing wrapping.
The game ends if there are no more top cards that can be moved to the Black Hole. The game is won if all of the cards end up in the Black Hole.
Shlomi Fish wrote a program which attempted to solve one million deals, of which 869,413 could be solved and the 130,587 others were fully traversed without a possible final solution, yielding a winning rate of over four fifths (87%). [3] A generalised version of the Black Hole patience is NP-complete. [4]
Game typically offers multiple paths, and to have the best chance of succeeding players should try to look a few moves ahead, and eliminate lines of play that lead to a dead end. [5]
All in a Row is somewhat similar to Black Hole. It is played with 13 columns of 4-cards each, and at the start of play, the first move can be made from any column.
Simple Simon is a patience or solitaire card game played with a regular 52 cards deck. It is a close relative of the well-known Spider Solitaire. It became somewhat popular being featured in some computerized collections of Solitaire card games, but its origins possibly predate its implementation as a computerized game.
Napoleon at St Helena is a 2-deck patience or solitaire card game for one player. It is quite difficult to win, and luck-of-the-draw is a significant factor. The Emperor Napoleon often played patience during his final exile to the island of St Helena, and this is said to be the version he probably played. Along with its variants, it is one of the most popular two-deck patiences or solitaires. The winning chances have been estimated as 1 in 10 games, with success typically dependent on the player's ability to clear one or more columns. The game is the progenitor of a large family of similar games, mostly with variations designed to make it easier to get out.
Canfield (US) or Demon (UK) is a patience or solitaire card game with a very low probability of winning. It was an English game first called Demon Patience and described as "the best game for one pack that has yet been invented", but was popularised in the United States at the turn of the 20th century by casino owner Richard A. Canfield, who turned it into a casino game. As a result it became known as Canfield in the United States, while continuing to be called Demon Patience in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. It is closely related to Klondike, and is one of the most popular games of its type.
Agnes is a patience or solitaire card game that emerged in England about the same time as Klondike appeared in the US. The classic version has the unusual feature of packing in colour, a feature it shares with Whitehead. By contrast, the later American variant appears to have been influenced by Klondike with packing is in alternate colours. The classic game has been described as the best single-pack patience yet invented.
King Albert is a patience or card solitaire using a deck of 52 playing cards of the open packer type. It is a conventional building game, and is said to be named after Albert I of Belgium and is a variant of Somerset. It is the best known of the three games that are each called Idiot's Delight because of the low chance of winning the game.
British Square is a patience or solitaire card game which uses two decks of 52 playing cards each. It is a fan-type game in the style of La Belle Lucie. It has an unusual feature of switchback building whereby each foundation is first built up and then built down.
Bristol is a Patience game using a deck of 52 playing cards. It is a fan-type game in the style of La Belle Lucie. It has an unusual feature of building regardless of suit on both the foundations and on the tableau; it is also one of the easiest to win. It was invented by Morehead & Mott-Smith.
Stonewall is a solitaire card game using a deck of 52 playing cards. It is probably thus named because the player seems to break down walls in exposing more of the face-down cards.
Crescent is a solitaire card game played with two decks of playing cards mixed together. The game is so called because when the cards are dealt properly, the resulting piles should form a large arc or a crescent. An alternative and less common name for the game is La Demi-Lune.
Tournament is a patience or solitaire card game which uses two decks of playing cards shuffled together. It is a variant of the much older game of Napoleon's Flank or Nivernaise and was first known as Maréchal Saxe.
Persian Patience is a patience card game which is played with two decks of playing cards. The unusual feature of this game is the fact that the two decks are decks used in Piquet and Bezique, i.e. those that have the Deuces (twos), Treys (Threes), Fours, Fives, and Sixes removed.
Penguin is a patience or solitaire card game, invented by David Parlett, which uses a deck of 52 playing cards. The game play is similar to solitaire card games like the popular Freecell and its predecessor Eight Off.
Westcliff is the name of two closely-related patience or card solitaire games of the simple packer type, both of which are played using a deck of 52 playing cards. One version is particularly easy to win, with odds of 9 in 10; the other is harder with odds closer to 1 in 4. The game has a variant, Easthaven.
German Patience is a solitaire card game which is played with two decks of playing cards shuffled together. It is an unusual game because building in the tableau or playing area is up, as opposed to building down in many others. Despite its name, it is not known if this game originated from Germany.
Amazons is an old patience or card solitaire game which is played with a single deck of playing cards. The game is played with a Piquet pack minus the kings or a standard 52-card pack that has its twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, and kings removed. This game is named after the female-led tribe, the Amazons, because the queen is the highest card, and all queens are displayed if the game is won.
Four Seasons is a patience or card solitaire which is played with a single deck of playing cards. It is also known as Corner Card and Vanishing Cross, due to the arrangement of the foundations and the tableau respectively. Another alternate name is Cross Currents.
Fortune's Favor or Fortune's Favour is a patience or card solitaire which is played with a deck of 52 playing cards. It is so-called probably because the chances of winning are completely on the player's side. It is a significantly simplified version of the game Busy Aces, a member of the Forty Thieves family of solitaire games.
British Blockade, also known as Parallels, is an old English patience or card solitaire of the blockade family which is played with two packs of playing cards. The name British Blockade was given to distinguish it from French Blockade which, however, is not a blockade game. The name Parallels is simply derived from the fact that the cards are lined up in rows parallel to each other.
Golf, also known as One Foundation, is a patience or solitaire card game where players try to earn the lowest number of points over the course of nine deals. It has a tableau of 35 face-up cards and a higher ratio of skill to luck than most other solitaire card games. Its easy game-play also makes it within easy reach of first-timers, while still offering scope for strategic play.
Algerian or Algerian Patience is a unique and difficult patience or card solitaire using two decks of playing cards. The object of the game is to build 8 foundations down from King to Ace or up from Ace to King in suit.
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