How to play
Vegas Solitaire uses the familiar Klondike layout but changes what counts as a good game. Instead of win-or-lose, every deal is scored in virtual credits, so a game where you get thirty cards home is worth something even if the last few never come out.
The layout. Twenty-eight cards form seven columns, the first holding one card and the last holding seven. Only the top card of each column is face up. The other 24 cards sit in the stock at the top left, with the waste pile beside it and four empty foundations on the right.
Moves on the columns. Cards go down in rank and alternate in colour: a red 6 on a black 7, a black 5 on that red 6. You can lift any correctly ordered run from a column and move it as one piece. When a column empties, only a king (with whatever run sits on it) can fill it. Whenever the face-up card is moved off a column, the card beneath turns over.
The foundations. Each foundation starts with an ace and climbs by suit to the king. A card can also come back off a foundation onto a column if you need it there, at a price explained below.
The stock. Tap the stock to deal from it onto the waste; only the top waste card is playable. How many cards you get and how often you can go through depends on the draw setting:
- Draw 3 (the default): three cards turn at a time, and you may go through the stock three times in total.
- Draw 1: one card at a time, and only a single pass. When the stock runs out, that’s it.
The Cards per draw choice applies from the next game, so switching it mid-deal won’t change the hand you’re playing.
Buttons. Undo takes back the last move, stock turns included. Hint suggests a move. Finish appears when every remaining card can go home and plays them up for you. New game deals again.
Scoring
The credit counter starts at −52: that’s the stake for the deal. Each card you place on a foundation adds 5. A card you pull back down from a foundation takes its 5 away again, so you can’t farm credits by moving the same card up and down.
That gives a few useful landmarks:
| Cards on foundations | Credits |
|---|---|
| 0 | −52 |
| 10 | −2 |
| 11 | +3 |
| 26 (half the deck) | +78 |
| 52 (a full win) | +208 |
Eleven cards is the break-even point. Every deal is scored on its own; the counter resets to −52 when you start a new one. Credits are just a score. They can’t be bought, won or cashed out.
Strategy
The scoring changes priorities compared with plain Klondike. There, a card on a foundation is only useful if it helps you finish. Here each card is worth 5 credits on the spot, and a stuck game still pays for everything you got up.
Free the face-down cards first. Twenty-one cards start hidden in the columns. Moves that turn one over are almost always better than moves that just shuffle face-up cards around, because hidden cards are where the aces and twos hide.
Send low cards home early, high cards later. Aces and twos have no use on the columns, so play them up right away. With sevens and above, think twice: a red 8 might be the only place to park a black 7 that’s blocking a hidden card.
Plan around the passes. In Draw 3 your first trip through the stock only shows every third card. Playing a card off the waste shifts the groupings, so the next pass brings different cards to the top. Use your first pass to learn what’s in there, then make the waste plays that open up the most on the second and third.
Treat Draw 1 as one look. You’ll see every stock card exactly once. Before turning the next card, play everything the current one allows; once you move on, it’s gone for this deal.
Don’t wreck the board for one card. Late in a stuck game, it can be tempting to break a column apart to get one more card home. If the move ruins the run that would have freed three others, the 5 credits aren’t worth it.
Use Undo to test lines. Undo includes stock turns, so you can peek at a branch and step back. It doesn’t cost credits.
If you like long solitaire with more columns to work with, Spider uses two decks and suit runs.
