The different piles

There are four different types of piles in Solitaire. They are:

• The Stock: The pile of facedown cards in the upper left corner.
• The Waste: The faceup pile next to the Stock in the upper left corner.
• The Foundations: The four piles in the upper right corner.
• The Tableau: The seven piles that make up the main table.

The setup

The Tableau piles are numbered from 1 to 7, pile 1 has 1 card, pile 2 has 2 cards and so on. The top card on each Tableau pile is turned face up, the cards below are turned face down. The cards that are left after setting up the Tableau are placed in the Stock, face down. The Waste and the Foundations start off empty.

The objective

To win Solitaire, you must get all the cards onto the Foundation piles. The Foundations are ordered by suit and rank, each Foundation has one suit and you must put the cards onto them in the order Ace 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jack Queen Ace. To get there, you can use the moves described below.

Allowed moves

• Flip cards from the Stock onto the Waste. You can flip either 1 or 3 cards from the Stock onto the Waste. The number can be configured in Options.
• Move a card from the Waste onto the Foundations. If the top card of the Waste can go onto one of the Foundations then you can drag it there.
• Move a card from the Waset onto the Tableau. You can move the top card of the Waste onto one of the Tableau piles.
• Move one or more cards from one Tableau pile to another. You can move a face up card on the Tableau onto another Tableau pile, if that pile's top card is one higher than the moved card and in a different color. For example, you could move a red 6 onto a black 7. Or, if you have red 6, black 5, red 4 face up on one tableau, you can move all of them at the same time onto a Tableau with a black 7. If you have an empty Tableau pile then you can only a king there.
• You can flip a face down Tableau card. If you have moved a face up card from a Tableau pile so now the top card is face down, then you can click the face down card and it will be flipped and shown face up.
• You can move a Tableau card onto the Foundations. You can do this manually if you need to clear some space on the Tableau. You can either drag the cards onto the Foundation, or just double click it and then it will got there by itself. When all cards on the Tableau are turned up, and all cards from the stock are finished then the game will automatically move all the Tableau cards onto the Foundations, since at that point you are guaranteed to win the game.
• You can Undo as many times as you like. The game offers unlimited undos. Each Undo counts as a new move though, so if you're trying to win the game in as few moves as possible you should be careful about how many undos you use.

Time and Moves

The game counts the moves you make, and measures the time it takes to finish the game, so you can compete against your previous best games if you want. Currently there is no scoring like in the Windows Solitaire, if someone is interested in this then contact me at einar@einaregilsson.com and I'll see what I can do.