Barry Rigal - Card Games For Dummies

You get three tries (or cycles ) to move all the cards into suits. At the end of each cycle, you pick up all the cards off the foundations, shuffle them well, and distribute them in trios again.

You can move cards in the tableau onto the card of the same suit one higher in rank, but beware! You can move each card only once, and you can only move one card at a time, which is critical. For example, as soon as the ♦7 goes on the ♦8, you can’t move the ♦8 again unless both cards go onto the foundation in the diamond suit. You can’t move the ♦7 and ♦8 onto the ♦9 because of the one-card-at-a-time rule. You have thus “buried” the ♦8. You can’t move this card until the next redeal, unless the ♦A through the ♦6 go into the foundation, whereupon the ♦7 and ♦8 can also go onto the foundation.

However, this rule doesn’t matter if the ♦8 is at the bottom of a pile; no cards are trapped by the move. The rule does matter if the ♦8 covers something else. Note that kings never move; therefore, you want them at the bottom of piles.

Bear in mind that the purpose of the game is to build up all the suits in order, starting with the ace, so you try to get the aces out from their piles. If the aces are at the top of their piles already, so much the better. If not, you have to excavate them, but at the same time, you have to plan the sequence of moves that brings the cards to the top. It isn’t a good idea to play five moves to get out the ♦A and then discover that the ♦2 got permanently buried in the process. Of course, sometimes burying a card may prove inevitable. The skill of the game is to bury as few cards as possible by making your moves in the right order, and to bury only cards that seem less relevant at the moment, such as jacks and queens. Kings automatically trap everything below them, so if you’re worried about burying the ♦J by putting the ♦10 on it, and the ♦Q is below the ♥K, relax! You cost yourself nothing — you were never going to get to move the ♦J anyway.

Another example of a potentially bad holding is seeing something along the lines of the ♦Q ♦10. Even if you get to put the ♦10 on the jack, doing so freezes the jack. You can’t move the ♦J again, because you can’t move the ♦10 and the ♦J onto the ♦Q.

Sometimes you get mutually impossible moves, as shown in Figure 2-7. With the base shown, you can’t move the ♦6 until you clear the ♥2, and you can’t move the ♥2 until you free the ♦6 to get at the ♥3. Neither card moves until the ♥A is free, when the ♥2 can go to the foundation.

FIGURE 2-7:Only one series of moves can get you out of this mess.

Certain moves are risk-free at the start of the game:

You can always move any queen onto the king of the same suit (because kings are stuck anyway).

After you move the top two cards of a pile of three and expose the card at the bottom of a pile, you can put the relevant card on top of it without worrying about the consequences. (When a card is at the bottom of a pile, it stands to reason that you can’t trap anything underneath it if you should render it unable to move.)

Whenever a card is stuck (for example, if you put the ♦7 on the ♦8, you make both cards immobile), you can build more cards, such as the ♦6 and ♦5, on top of it. In fact, doing so can only help your chances of getting more cards out.

The initial layout for a sample hand appears in Figure 2-8 (the top card in each trio appears on the right).

FIGURE 2-8:Starting a game of La Belle Lucie.

The figure layout has some encouraging features: All the kings are reasonably placed (they either appear at the bottoms of their piles or at least don’t trap too many cards), and three of the aces are immediately accessible — a very fortunate combination of events. The bad news is that the ♥J and ♥9 are on top of one another, ensuring that the ♥10 (which traps the fourth ace) won’t move this cycle.

Start by making the automatic moves:

1 Take off the ♠A and start a foundation pile for spades.

2 Put the ♦9 on the ♦10 (because the ♥10 can’t move, and the ♦J can’t come free, so you may as well build on the ♦10).

3 Take off the ♣A, the ♣2, and the ♦A.

4 The next card to go for is the ♠2; you can get it easily by putting the ♠J on the ♠Q.But before you do that, can you put the ♠Q on the ♠K? To make that move, you need to put the ♥3 on the ♥4, and to do that, you need to move the ♦4 onto the ♦5. That last move is impossible, because the ♦5 is trapped below the ♥A, so put the ♠J on the ♠Q and take up the ♠2, ♠3, and ♠4.

Figure 2-9 shows an interesting combination of piles.

FIGURE 2-9:Your game begins to take shape after you make the automatic moves.

You want to clear the ♣4 away to get the ♠5 out, and you want to clear the ♠7 away to get the ♣3 out. Should you put the ♣4 on the ♣5, or should you put the ♣5 on the ♣6 and then put the ♣4 on the ♣5? The answer is that you need to keep the ♠8 (below the ♣6) free. Here’s how to progress:

1 Put the ♣4 on the ♣5 and free the ♠5 for the foundation.

2 Now put the ♣6 on the ♣7, the ♠7 on the ♠8, and the ♦6 on the ♦7. (Because the ♦8 is under a king, it’s stuck for the duration, so you can’t move the ♦7.)

3 The ♦3 is now free, which allows you to move it through the ♣8 onto the foundation.

The preceding example shows a relatively simple problem, but the degree of interaction can get considerably more convoluted. This element of trading off one move against another is what makes La Belle Lucie such good fun.

The ♣9 is stuck (you can’t move the ♦4), the ♠6 is stuck, and the ♥A is stuck, which leaves only diamonds. The ♦2 comes out easily enough by putting the ♣J on the queen. However, the ♦3 is under the ♠Q and the ♠J, so you take the ♦2 out, which ends the first cycle.

You keep your foundations, but now you pick up the cards left in the tableau, shuffle them well (they were in sequence, so an imperfect shuffle can restrict your mobility), and deal them out in threes again. If you have two cards left over, make one pair; if one card is left over after you put the cards out in threes, as at the start, make two pairs out of the last four cards.

You have three cycles to get out, and if you fail at the last turn, you’re allowed one cheat, or merci, by moving a single card in the tableau; whether you want to pull one card up or push one card down is up to you.

Poker Patience is, in theory, an undemanding Solitaire. It takes only a minute or two to play, and you can approach the game frivolously or seriously. I do both in this section.

To start, you need to know the ranks of Poker hands (in other words, what beats what). In ascending order, the ranks are as follows: