A patience game | |
Named variants | Poker shuffle, serpent poker solitaire |
---|---|
Family | Non-builder |
Deck | Single 52-card |
See also Glossary of solitaire |
Poker Squares (also known as, Poker Solitaire, or Poker Patience) is a patience game with the objective of building the best poker hands using just 25 cards from the deck. [1] It rewards both lucky guessing and accurate calculation of odds. [2]
The game starts with placing a card onto a space in a 5x5 grid. Cards are placed one at a time and once a card is placed on the grid, it can no longer be moved.
Once all 25 cards are dealt, points are scored on hands of 5 cards formed horizontally in rows or vertically in columns. [3] The number of points depend on the hierarchy of poker hands.
There are two systems of scoring: The English and the American point systems. The English system reflects the difficulty of getting the hands in the game; the American system reflects the difficulty of getting the hands in actual poker. The two systems rate the hands' scores as follows:
Poker hand | American point system | English point system |
---|---|---|
Royal flush | 100 | 30 |
Straight flush | 75 | 30 |
Four of a kind | 50 | 16 |
Full house | 25 | 10 |
Flush | 20 | 5 |
Straight | 15 | 12 |
Three of a kind | 10 | 6 |
Two pairs | 5 | 3 |
One pair | 2 | 1 |
The points scored from each hand are added to the total score. Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith suggest that to win one must score at least 200 points in the American system or 70 in the English system. [4] Because of the application of the point system, this solitaire is more prevalent as a computer game.
In the variation Poker Shuffle (also called Switch-a-roo Poker Solitaire or Open Poker Squares), cards played onto the grid can be moved until all 25 cards are set. Players can even choose to deal all 25 cards face-up before beginning placement. This gives more flexibility, and gives players the opportunity to produce higher scoring hands on the grid. Scoring is the same as Poker Squares, but under these rules a winning score is 120 points in the English system and 310 points in the American system. [5]
A two player variant can implemented by taking turns to play and comparing scores. [6]
Klondike, also known as Canfield, is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, something which "defies explanation" as it has one of the lowest rates of success of any such game. Partly because of that, it has spawned numerous variants including Batsford, Easthaven, King Albert, Thumb and Pouch, Somerset or Usk and Whitehead, as well as the American variants of the games, Agnes and Westcliff. The distinguishing feature of all variants is a triangular layout of the tableau, building in ascending sequence and packing in descending order.
Spider is a type of patience game, and is one of the more popular two-deck solitaire games. The game originates in 1949, and its name comes from a spider's eight legs, referencing the eight foundation piles that must be filled to win the game.
Accordion is a patience or card solitaire using a single deck of playing cards. It is so named because it looks like accordion pleats, which have to be ironed out. The object is to compress the entire deck into one pile like an accordion.
Cribbage solitaire is a solitaire card game using a deck of 52 playing cards. It is based on the game of five-card cribbage, also known as the "old game", and is one of many solitaire card games based on those played by at least two players, best known of which is poker solitaire.
Bisley is a patience or card solitaire which uses a deck of 52 playing cards, and while difficult, it often can be completed successfully. It is closely related to Baker's Dozen, but the foundations are built upwards from Ace and downwards from King simultaneously. It is one of the few one-deck games in which the player has options on which foundation a card can be placed.
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.
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.
Baroness is a patience or card solitaire that is played with a single deck of 52 playing cards. It is similar to other members of the Simple Addition family and is also distantly related to Aces Up.
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.
Napoleon's Square is a patience or solitaire card game which uses two decks of playing cards. First described in a revised edition of Lady Cadogan's Illustrated Games of Patience or Solitaire in the early 1900s, it is an easy variation of Napoleon at St Helena. It is not determined if Napoleon actually played this game, or any solitaire game named after him.
Puss in the Corner, also called Puss in Corner is a patience or solitaire card game that is played with a single pack of 52 playing cards. It is of the half-open, planner type and is a "thinly disguised variant of Sir Tommy," but with modifications and with the waste piles placed at the corners of the foundations, hence the name. It has the rare feature that the suits are built up in colour, not in suit.
Queen's Audience, sometimes known as King's Audience, is a pictorial patience or solitaire card game which uses a single pack of 52 playing cards. It is so named because the Jacks and their 'entourage' end up adjacent to their respective Queens as if having an audience with them.
Deuces or Twos is a patience or card solitaire game of English origin which is played with two packs of playing cards. It is so called because each foundation starts with a Deuce, or Two. It belongs to a family of card games that includes Busy Aces, which is derived in turn from Napoleon at St Helena.
Cribbage Squares, occasionally Cribbage Square, is a patience or card solitaire based on Cribbage which can be played using a deck of playing cards. This game works the same way as Poker Squares, but with cribbage scoring.
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.
Four Corners, also known as Les Quatre Coins, Cornerstones, or Corner Patience, is a solitaire card game which is played with two decks of playing cards. It is so called because of the pile of four cards at the corners of the tableau.
Royal Flush is a solitaire card game which is played with a deck of 52 playing cards. The game is so called because the aim of the game is to end up with a royal flush of any suit.
Patience (Europe), card solitaire or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are intended for play by a single player, but there are also "excellent games of patience for two or more players".