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How to Play Solitaire

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By eHow Contributing Writer
(264 Ratings)
Play Solitaire
Play Solitaire

This popular version of solitaire has many names: Klondike, Fascination, Chinaman, Patience and Canfield. The object is to move all of the cards to the four foundations. You're bound to get frustrated with this game after a while, but when you make it happen it's worth all the agony.

From Quick Guide: Solitaire Basics
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  1. Step 1

    Deal seven cards horizontally with the first card on the left face up and the rest face down.

  2. Step 2

    Repeat the deal with six cards, skipping the pile with the face-up card. Again, the first card in the deal (the second pile from the left) should be face up and the rest face down.

  3. Step 3

    Do this until you have dealt 28 cards. The last card on each pile should be face up.

  4. Step 4

    Put the rest of the cards aside, face down in a stack. This is the stockpile.

  5. Step 5

    Put any aces showing on the foundation piles. The foundations are built up in sequence by suit. In other words, the first card in each foundation pile is an ace, the next is a 2, and so on. One pile is hearts, one is diamonds, one is spades, and the last is clubs.

  6. Step 6

    Turn over the top card in the stockpile if you can't play any of the cards showing.

  7. Step 7

    Build tableaux in descending order and by alternating colors. This means that the card played on a tableau must be the opposite color of the card showing and it must be lower ranking. For example, if a 6 of spades (black) is showing, you can play either the 5 of hearts or 5 of diamonds (the red suits) on it.

  8. Step 8

    Put the card on the waste pile if you have no place to play it.

  9. Step 9

    Move an ace to the foundation when you find one.

  10. Step 10

    Turn the exposed face-down card over when you move a face-up card from the tableau.

  11. Step 11

    Move a group of cards when you have an open tableau. If the face-up card on a tableau is a red king and you have another tableau with the sequence queen-jack-10-9-8, you can move the entire sequence to the king as long as that queen is black.

  12. Step 12

    Place a king in an empty tableau space.

  13. Step 13

    Win by using up all of the cards and filling each foundation by suit with the ace through king cards.

Tips & Warnings
  • The seven spaces where you initially deal the cards are the tableaux.
  • Imagine that there are four spaces for stacks of cards above the seven piles you have in front of you. These four spaces are the foundations.
  • When you've used up the stockpile, turn the waste pile over and start again.

Comments  

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mstrktn said

Flag This Comment

on 7/26/2009 From the wiki entry for chinaman - "its use is nowadays discouraged by Asian American organizations and others, and considered offensive by modern dictionaries"

While I agree that she was being too politically correct, you guys don't have to be assholes about it. And you come off sounding very stupid since you don't even realize that many people find the term offensive.

zoob said

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on 7/8/2009 drjeckyl is right queene elizabeth, you are an idiot. i hate people like you who just go around everywhere saying everything is "racist" or "socially incorrect" its really pissing annoying and you should just shutup. trust me, no one cares about the worthless **** you have to talk about. **** you.

drjeckyl said

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on 7/3/2009 "Queen Elizibeth"
Would you mind explaining to me why the title chinaman is offensive?
its not a racist or offensive term
its a GAME
and as far as i recall it isnt racist to name something after a country or a person from that country.
Grow up
i dont give a damn if your 50 or 500 its politically correct people like you that get on my nerves

Flag This Comment

on 2/8/2009 I am over 50 years old and I have never heard of this game called "Chinaman". This is a racist, offensive term. Maybe the reason this name has died out is because most decent, socially-conscious people don't feel the need to revive this term.

Flag This Comment

on 2/8/2009 I am over 50 years old and I have never heard this game called "Chinaman". That is a racist, offensive term. Maybe that's why this term has died out, most socially conscious people don't feel the need to bring it up.

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