Want to Win at Solitaire? Players Share Their Best Tips

In some countries, one of the many variants of Solitaire games is called Patience, and it’s an apt name. If this pastime teaches you anything, it’s how to keep from losing your cool while you cycle through the deck looking for that red six.

Solitaire games became popular in Europe in the late 18th century, and a surge in interest in cartomancy at the time suggests that they may have originated as a casual form of fortune telling. They also weren’t always played by one lonesome person: Despite the name, Solitaire actually began as a contest between two players, each of whom played a game while bystanders — and, presumably, the players themselves — placed bets on the outcome.

The oldest known book of single-player Solitaire games came from Russia in 1826, followed by publications in France and Germany. The first English-language translations of those collections appeared in the late 1860s. The games eventually made their way into popular culture of the time: In Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations,” Magwitch plays “a complicated kind of patience with ragged cards of his own,” and Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, was also a devoted player.

In 1988, Wes Cherry, a summer intern at Microsoft, developed a prototype of Solitaire as a way for users — who were not yet proficient at pointing and clicking — to learn how to use a mouse. The game appeared on desktop computers in 1990 as part of Windows 3.0.

Today, it’s a common belief that playing Solitaire — either online or with physical playing cards — not only keeps the mind mentally sharp, but also has the benefit of being relaxing. It’s hard to worry about the to-do list in your head when you’re trying to figure out where that red king is.

“It stops the hamster wheel in my brain for a bit,” said Jenni Levy, a physician from Allentown, Penn.

I know that when I’ve had a stressful day, the rhythmic tapping of my finger on my smartphone’s Solitaire game soothes my soul. And when all the cards have been moved to their piles at the top, the hit of dopamine is unbeatable.

Playing any of the versions of Solitaire gives me that same boost, but I am faithful to the basic game. Sure, I have occasional flings with Spider Solitaire and Free Cell, but I always come back to the classic version. Maybe it’s because I learned how to play the basic game from my mother when I was a child — with actual playing cards, not online — and that version reminds me of good times past. Or maybe it’s because I feel like a Tarot-reading sorceress as I lay the cards down in their columns.

I don’t always win, which is part of life, even if I don’t like it. But there is always room for improvement, so I asked some other Solitaire lovers for their best advice on how to boost my odds of landing a victory.

First, however, a brief look at the parts of the Solitaire board. To be honest, I had no idea they even had names until I wrote this article. Live and learn.

Tableau: The main playing area of the board, where the columns of cards are built and moved.

Foundation: The four piles on which an entire suit or sequence must be built up. These start with the aces.

Stockpile: The deck of face-down cards from which players draw and add to either the tableau or foundation.

Opinions on the best first move are mixed.

There are two ways to start a game of Solitaire: Players can immediately turn over the top card in the stockpile, or they can begin by putting any face-up aces and twos on the foundation pile.

Those who are resolutely “stockpile first” players believe that even one more visible card provides an opportunity to move the other cards around.

Neal Taparia, a founder of Solitaired.com, goes for the stockpile first. “Oftentimes you want to plan ahead and think about where the cards are,” he said. “So I remove the first card from the stockpile. It could be an important card that I want to play in the game.”

Me, I’m an “aces and twos first” player. Why not score points while you can? The only downside to my method is that I may need those twos later, but I’m willing to take my chances.

Prioritize uncovering cards.

Move columns around so you can flip the next face-down card beneath them. If you have to make a choice between moving similar columns of cards, choose the one that has a bigger pile behind it. That’s your opportunity to really dig into that stack and find the cards you need.

And don’t be afraid to transfer parts of a stack to another. It’s not cheating, as long as no one else is looking. Taking a few cards from a column to finish a different one can make a big difference in your game.

Keep an eye on those kings.

Blank columns are a plague upon Solitaire players. Move your tableaus cards around and keep drawing from the stockpile until you turn over a king.

Deal one card at a time from the stockpile, not three.

There are players who like to set challenges for themselves, and that’s fine, but I’m playing to win. The path to heartbreak is paved with players who deal three cards at a time, especially when that six you needed goes sailing by.

Mr. Taparia noted that turning over three cards at a time made for a more difficult game on his website. Of the 2,898,974 “turn one” games played on Solitaired.com, 33 percent were won. On the other hand, of the 1,429,916 “turn three” games played, 11.1 percent were won.

Make as many passes through the deck as you need.

I was taught that going through the stockpile more than once was cheating, but I now cycle through the deck as much as I want, for the same reason I am allowed to eat potato chips for dinner: I’m a grown woman. It’s my game, and I’ll play it however I want.

By all means, count cards.

Card counting may be considered poor form when playing other games, but, in Solitaire, it’s perfectly acceptable.

“If an ace is visible in the deck, count the number of cards you need to get rid of for it to show up,” said Dan Katz of North Attleboro, Mass. “That might mean not playing a card you could otherwise play.”

Don’t rush.

Victory (sometimes) goes to those who take the time to plan a few moves ahead and assess the entire tableau. Focusing only on building up the foundation will get a player stuck. Don’t ask me how I know.

There is nothing wrong with using the “undo” button.

We all make mistakes. Maybe I did put that stockpile card on one column when it would have been more useful on another. Through the wonders of technology, I can pretend it never happened.

“If you put a stockpile card on the foundation,” Mr. Taparia said, “you might want to put it back in the tableau just so you can put another card on top of it, revealing another face-down.”

Try to keep your suits in one place.

I am not disciplined enough to do this — I will slap cards up on the foundation any chance I get — but some people try to stack their columns with cards of the same suits.

For Jason Briant of Watchung, N. J., that means only stacking spades and hearts or clubs and diamonds in a column. “Occasionally two complementary columns will clear all the way up, in a way that doesn’t happen when all the suits are mixed together,” he said.