Ultimate Book of Card Games: The Comprehensive Guide to More Than 350 Games (23 page)

1. DIFFICULTY
   :
   medium
   
2. TIME LENGTH
   :
   medium
   
3. DECKS
   : 1
   

If you can handle the mathematics—Ninety-one requires quick-footed addition and multiplication of numbers—then you will love this game. You should win 1 in every 7 hands.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck, and deal four piles of thirteen cards each, all face up.

WINNING
Build each of the four piles to a total of 91 points. Numbered cards are worth their face value, aces are worth 1, jacks 11, queens 12, and kings 13.

HOW TO PLAY
Move the topmost cards to any pile, regardless of suits or rank. That’s right! Suit and rank do not matter in this game; your only concern is the total value of cards in each pile. You can make 91 points in many ways. For example, a pile with four kings (13 × 4 = 52), three 10s (30), one 8, and one ace. A complete run from ace to king is also worth 91 points.

It does not matter how you get there, you simply must end the game with four piles that each add up to 91 points. You may fill empty spaces with any available card, but at the end of the game, each pile must have at least one card.

1. DIFFICULTY
   :
   low
   
2. TIME LENGTH
   :
   medium
   
3. DECKS
   : 2
   

Octave offers excitement and novelty, and is an all-around fantastic Solitaire game. The odds of winning are 1 in every 5 hands.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with two fifty-two-card decks (104 cards total), and deal all eight aces to the foundations. Next, shuffle and deal eight tableau piles; each pile has three cards, the bottom card face down, the others face up. The remaining cards are your stock.

WINNING
You have two objectives in Octave. The first is to build eight foundations from ace to 10 by suit in ascending rank. The second is to build each of the eight tableau piles in descending rank and alternating color from king to jack (K of hearts-Q of spades-J of diamonds, K of spades-Q of diamonds-J of spades, etc.). Accomplishing one or the other is not good enough; to win you must properly build both the foundations and the tableau!

HOW TO PLAY
Move the topmost tableau cards to the foundations or another tableau pile. Fill tableau vacancies with any available card. Once you’re out of moves, turn over the topmost stock card and play it either to the foundations or the tableau. Otherwise, place it face up in a waste pile. The topmost waste card may always be played.

Things get interesting once the stock is exhausted. Turn over the waste pile (do not shuffle), and deal eight cards face up. This is your new reserve. Play any reserve card to the foundations or the tableau, but do not build on other reserve cards. When you play a reserve card, replace it with another card from the stock. Once you can no longer play cards from the reserve, turn over the topmost stock card. In an unexpected twist, if you cannot play this card immediately to a foundation or tableau pile, the game is lost. Otherwise, keep on playing.

There is no second redeal in Octave. The game is lost once the stock is exhausted a second time.

1. DIFFICULTY
   :
   medium
   
2. TIME LENGTH
   :
   short
   
3. DECKS
   : 1
   

Osmosis is unique in two ways. First, it is one of the few Solitaire games where foundations are built exclusively by suit rather than by suit and rank. Second, you may not play cards to the foundations until a card of the same rank has already been played on the foundation directly above. These two twists make Osmosis a worthy challenge. The odds of winning are 1 in every 15 hands.

HOW TO DEAL
Start with a fifty-two-card deck. In a single column, deal four tableau piles, each with three cards face down and a fourth card face up. Next, in a column immediately to the right, deal one card face up. This is your first (of four) foundations. The remaining cards are your stock.

WINNING
Build four foundation piles, each with thirteen cards of the same suit.

HOW TO PLAY
You start the game knowing the suit of your first foundation pile. If you dealt 7 of spades, for example, move any visible spade from the tableau to the spade foundation. The rank of the first foundation also determines the starting rank for the three other foundations. In this example, the three remaining foundations must each start with 7 (7 of diamonds, 7 of clubs, 7 of hearts). So move up the remaining 7s as they become available.

There’s one additional complication: You may not play a card to the foundations until a card of the same rank is played to the foundation pile directly above it. Here’s an example: Your first foundation pile starts with 7 of spades and one of your tableau piles has J of spades showing. You move J of spades to the spade foundation. Let’s also assume that 7 of diamonds is showing in your tableau, so you move that over to start a second foundation pile. At this point, you may only build
J of diamonds to the diamond foundation, because only J of spades has been built on the pile directly above. You must build another card to your spade pile before you may play a card of the same rank to your diamond pile. This rule holds true for all four foundation piles.