One of those timeless card games you can play by yourself, particularly when looking for something to while away the hours such as long waits or journeys.
If you have a Windows PC you may already have played this and have the idea.
Shuffle a pack of cards (without any jokers) and then deal 7 cards face down next to each other in a row (so you have 7 cards in a row). Deal again but this time only 6 cards, face down and starting with the second card from the left. Repeat so that next time its 5 cards only face down and 3rd from the right. Continue dealing out with 1 card less each time until you deal 1 card only onto the right most pile. At which point you should have 7 piles of cards with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 cards in them respectively. Put the remaining cards into a pile face down to one side and turn the top most card of this face up and the topmost card of each pile face up.
The objective is to put all the cards into four piles of each suite and in sequence starting with Aces at the bottom and Kings last.
If any of the face up cards are Aces you can move these out and start a pile of that suite. The next card that can go on top has to be the next highest a 2, then a 3 and so on. But remember these can ONLY be placed if the next lowest card of the same suite is placed in one of the four suite piles.
If you cannot take a card out and place it on one of the suite piles, you can do one one or both of the following:
a) Turn over the next topmost card of the spare pile (sometimes this is played so that you turn over the next three cards, but can only play the topmost of these three).
b) Try to access and turn over the cards you have dealt and remain face down by the following:
Rule 1: A face up card can be moved and placed under a card of the opposite colour and of the next highest value, eg a 3 of Diamonds (red ♦) can only be placed under a 4 of Spades (Black ♠) or 4 of Clubs (Black ♣).
Rule 2: Whenever a face up card is moved from the dealt pile and exposes a face down card. The next face down card of the pile can be turned face up.
Rule 3: Only Kings can be placed in an empty pile (ie where no cards remain).
If you have 2 or more cards face up in a single pile in the dealt hand, eg the 4 Spades with a 3 Diamonds on top, you can move all the face up cards in one go, so long as the highest value card in this group (in this case the 4 Spades) is moved according to Rule 1. In this case a 5 of Hearts or 5 of Diamonds.
Once the spare pile has been worked through, you turn all the cards face down and start working through it again.
The game finishes either when you have managed to put all the cards in sequence in their respective suites, or you can no longer make any moves (ie you have worked through the spare pile and unable to place any cards).
