Solitaire

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The Klondike Solitaire game that comes with GNOME.

This article is about the solitaire family of card games. For the popular computer versions, see Klondike and Spider Solitaire. For other meanings, see Solitaire (disambiguation).

Solitaire or Patience is any of a family of single-player card games of a generally similar character, but varying greatly in detail. The games are generally referred to as "Patience" in British English while "solitaire" is the American English term.

These games typically involve dealing cards from a shuffled deck into a prescribed arrangement on a tabletop, from which the player attempts to reorder the deck by suit and rank through a series of moves transferring cards from one place to another under prescribed restrictions. Some games allow for the reshuffling of the deck(s), and/or the placement of cards into new or 'empty' locations.

Solitaire has its own terminology; see solitaire terminology.

There are many different solitaire games, but the term "solitaire" is often used to refer specifically to the most well-known form, called "Klondike". Klondike and some other solitaire games have been adapted into two-player competitive games.

There are a vast array of variations on the solitaire/patience theme, using either one or more decks of cards, with rules of varying complexity and skill levels. Many of these have been converted to electronic form and are available as computer games. Basic forms of Klondike solitaire and FreeCell come with every current installation of Microsoft Windows, for example, and both Windows Me and Windows XP also include a version of Spider. Many software solitaire collections can be downloaded from the internet at no charge.

The term 'solitaire' is also used for single-player games of concentration and skill using a set layout of tiles, pegs or stones rather than cards. These games include:

1 History
2 Examples of solitaire card games
3 Multiplayer Solitaire
4 Reference Materials
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Like the origin of playing cards, the origin of solitaire is largely unknown as there are no historical records to support it. Some scholars think these kinds of games are largely French in origin as early English language books about patience games refer to French literature. This can be evidenced by the names of some games written in those English books such as La Belle Lucie, Le Cadran, Le Loi Salique, La Nivernaise and others.

Napoleon was also said to have "played patience" during his exile. Some solitaire games were named after him, such as Napoleon at St. Helena, Napoleon's Square, etc. But whether he played those games or actually invented them is not known.

The first collection of solitaire card games in the English language is attributed to Lady Adelaide Cadogan through her Illustrated Games of Patience, published in about in 1870 and reprinted several times. Before this, literature about solitaire (or "patience" as it was known at the time) was non-existent, not even in such books as Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester (1674), Abbé Bellecour's Academie des Jeux (1674), and Bohn's Handbook of Games (1850), all of which are used as reference on card games.

Lady Cadogan's book spawned other collections such as Patience by E. D. Cheney, Amusements for Invalids by Annie B. Henshaw (1870), and later Dick's Games of Patience, published by Dick and Fitzgerald. Other books about solitaire written towards the end of the 19th century were by H. E. Jones (a.k.a. Cavendish), Angelo Lewis (a.k.a. Professor Hoffman), Basil Dalton, and Ernest Bergholt.

There are also literary references to solitaire games. Some of these are:

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace mentions a scene that took place in 1808 where the characters were playing patience.
In John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men, protagonist George Milton often plays Solitaire on the road and on the farm.
Somerset Maugham's The Gentleman in the Parlour mentions Spider and quotes playing solitaire as "a flippant disposition."
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, the character Grushenka played a solitaire game known as Fools to get through times in crises.

It is also noted that according to Redbook Magazine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fan of the solitaire game Spider.

In the 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate, Raymond Shaw is compelled to perform specific actions through a brainwashing trigger, which often includes a game of traditional solitaire and finding the queen of diamonds playing card.

[edit] Examples of solitaire card games

See: List of solitaire card games

[edit] Multiplayer Solitaire

Solitaire, as its name suggests, is a game designed for one player. However, a few varieties of the game exist that are multiplayer. These include Kings in the Corner and Nertz (also known as Pounce or Racing Demon).

In 2004, Infospace Games created a new variety on multiplayer Solitaire by making the mobile game, Solitaire For Prizes. Players across the U.S. can compete in multiplayer tournaments against others to win daily and weekly prizes.

The Instant Messenger Windows Live Messenger has a version of multiplayer solitaire built-in to it called Solitaire Showdown. It allows you to challenge your IM buddies to a game which spawns within the chat window.

[edit] Reference Materials

Lee, Sloane & Packard, Gabriel. 100 Best Solitaire Games: 100 Ways to Entertain Yourself with a Deck of Cards. ; New York, N. Y.: Cardoza Publishing, 2004. (ISBN 1-58042-115-6)
Arnold, Peter. Card Games for One. London: Hamlyn, 2002 (ISBN 0-600-60727-5)
Moorehead, Albert H. & Mott-Smith, Geoffrey. The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games. New York: Bantam Books, 1977 (ISBN 0-553-26240-8)
Crépeau, Pierre. The Complete Book of Solitaire (a translation of Le Grand Livre des Patiences). Willowdale, Ontario: Firefly Books, 2001. (ISBN 1-55209-597-5)