A variation of Spider Solitaire with increased complexity - Scorpion Solitaire. This puzzle is more suitable for experienced players. But the experience may not be enough, the player must have good luck. Scorpion has variants - difficult and easy Scorpion solitaire (also play Spider Solitaire 1 suit, free Spider Solitaire 2 suits game, Spider Solitaire 4 suits full screen).
The game requires only one deck of 52 cards. The aim of the game is to put all the cards into 4 stacks in descending order of suit, that is, King, Queen, Jack, ... Two, Ace.
Rules of Scorpion Solitaire
Let's take a look at how to play Scorpion Solitaire? The rules of the game are similar to the rules of the game of Yukon Solitaire. The playing field consists of 7 stacks, which are laid out all the cards of the deck. The stacks can be conditionally divided into two parts - left of three columns and right of four columns.
There are 8 rows in the left part, and all cards in this part of the field are open, that is the player sees their front side. The bottom 2 rows on the right side are laid out as closed cards, that is, with their backs to the top. Then another 5 rows are placed on them, but already face up. Thus, the player sees the value and suit of all cards except 8 cards from the very beginning of the game.
If the rules for moving cards would be similar to Spider, then due to the large size of the stacks, the difficulty of releasing them would be very high. Therefore in Scorpion Solitaire there is a simplification - it is allowed to move any open card from one column to another column to the card of the same suit with one more value (as well as in Spider), but it does not matter what cards are on the moved card. For example, the sequence ♠10, ♥Q, ♥J, ♠J can be moved to ♠J, but it cannot be moved to ♥J.
As a consequence the columns can be very long, and it is not very difficult to free the column. This ease of moving cards between columns is recommended to be used primarily to open cards that are flipped upside down.
Another standard rule for most solitaire games is that closed cards are flipped over and opened when no other cards remain above them. At that point, such a card is included in the game, and it is allowed to be flipped to other stacks.
At some point the stack may become vacant, then only the king or a sequence beginning with the king may be placed on the vacant cell. After all, there are no cards older than the king, so the free cell is the only place where you can put the sequence beginning with the king. The same rules exist, for example, in the most famous Solitaire Solitaire.
Tips for a winning strategy
As in other types of solitaire, the sooner all the cards become known, the easier it will be to calculate their moves, and thus successfully unravel the solitaire. So the first tip is to try to open eight closed cards as soon as possible.
It is worth keeping one of the columns empty, so that if necessary you can use it and put there the sequence starting with the king.
It is important to remember about losing combinations, that is, you may find such sequences, in which the cards cannot be put into any other stack. For example, consider the sequence ♠8, ♠6, ♠7. You can't move the seven, because the eight is above it. You can only move the whole sequence together, but you can't swap 6 and 7. That's why this puzzle can't be played. If the sequence were reversed, that is, ♠7, ♠6, ♠8, then the eight could be shifted to the nine and such combination is not a "deadlock".
Based on the previous advice, we can formulate another rule - try to avoid dangerous moves, that is, to have a card of a lower rank above a higher card. For example, in one row can be ♠7 and ♠8, and if the seven is higher than the eight, this situation is undesirable. The reason for this is that even if the eight will be open, then move the seven to it will not work, because it is higher. In turn, the seven to move to another row also can not, because it should be placed only on the eight of the same suit.
These features greatly increase the complexity of this type of solitaire. Do not forget these rules when planning your next move, and then the probability of winning will be much higher.
Interface of the playing field
To the right of the name of the Scorpion Solitaire is a counter of moves. Experienced players often keep track of the number of moves and try not just unroll the solitaire, and making the minimum movement of cards.
In case of difficulties, when the player can not see which move could be made next, in the upper menu, you can click on the "Hint". If a move exists, the move will automatically be performed. There are cases when the player realizes that he was in a hurry and sees a better move - for such a situation there is a "Undo" button. In this case, the number of made moves will be reduced.
If the solitaire is not successful, then by clicking on the button "Restart" you can start the same solitaire from the beginning. When you click on "New game" the game starts with a new layout.