Strategy

About Strategy Solitaire

by Thomas Warfield

Screen shot of the game Strategy from Pretty Good Solitaire.

Strategy is unique solitaire game of, surprise, strategy.

How to Play

There are four foundation piles. These will be built up from Aces ot Kings. When all of the cards are moved here, the game is won. There are also eight tableau pile. All of the foundation and tableau piles start the game empty.

All of the cards in the deck start the game in the stock. Play consists of playing the top card of the stock to a tableau pile. Any card may be played to any tableau pile, regardless of what is already there. The catch is that once a card has been played to a pile, it cannot be moved until the end of the game.

Aces, when they appear, are automatically moved up to start the foundation piles.

After all the cards in the stock have been moved to the tableau, the cards are then moved to the foundations in the following way: Only the top card of each tableau pile is available. The foundations are built up in suit from the Ace up to the King. If at any time no card can be placed on the foundations, you lose.

In effect, the entire game is played while placing the cards on the tableau. If any card is placed on a tableau pile that contains a card of the same suit and lower value, the game will be lost. This is almost entirely a game of skill. It is very easy to get blocked, not only by placing a higher card of the same suit on a lower card, but by blocking cards of others suits as well.

This makes Strategy pretty much enitirely a game of skill. Average players win about 95% of the time, so it is possible to do quite well.

Variations of Strategy