Solitaire - Definition


Solitaire - Definition

This article is about the solitaire family of card games. See Solitaire (disambiguation) for other meanings.

Solitaire is a family of single-player card games of a generally similar character, but varying greatly in detail. The games are more commonly known as "Patience" in British English.

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. A basic form of Klondike solitaire comes with every current installation of Microsoft Windows, for example. Arachnid Solitaire is an example of a two-deck electronic version. 123 Free Solitaire and PySol are two examples of many stand-alone games one may download from the internet, in order to play addition versions of the game on a computer.

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: