Solitaire card games are played all over the world and hundreds of different variations of the games exist. One of the easiest and most exciting variations of the classic card game is golf solitaire. Because of its simplicity, players are able to pick up the rules of such a game very fast and then go on to spend hours with this blissful pastime.
History of Solitaire
The solitaire card game has its roots in Scandinavia in Germany. Back then, this game was not played as a fun activity or for cash, rather it was exclusively used by card readers for fortune-telling purposes. The earliest textual mention of the game of solitaire was in an 18th-century German game anthology named Das Neue Königliche L'Hombre-Spiel. However, it was only in the 19th century that this game started gaining traction. Shortly after, countless rule books for the game such as 'Illustrated Games of Patience' and 'Amusement for Invalids' started being published, and this made the game more accessible to the mass public.
How Golf Solitaire Is Played?
To play golf solitaire a standard 52 card deck is required. The cards will be used to create seven different columns with each column consisting of five cards. Each new row of cards dealt to make the columns overlap the previous row. After this is done, the rest of the deck that remains will be used as the stock pile and this will allow players to introduce new cards into the match during the gameplay. The top card of the stock pile will be flipped over and it will be used to start the waste pile. All in all, the goal of the golf solitaire is for a player to transfer all of the cards from each of the seven columns to the waste pile. It's to be noted that cards from the columns can be sent to the waste pile only if they are a rank higher or a rank lower than the top card of the waste stack. As players continue the transferring process, there might come a time when they get stuck due to the desired card rank not being available in the columns. That is the time when the player will be able to introduce a card from the stock pile to the waste pile to see if the game can be resumed. If not, then gamers will continue pulling out cards from the stock until an appropriate card is found. However, keep in mind that the stock pile can be swept through only once, and resets are not allowed. Once a player manages to move all the cards from the columns to the waste pile, then s/he wins the game. If a player gets completely stuck, and as a result, there are cards left in the columns, then s/he loses the session. When moving cards from the columns to the waste stack, only those cards that are not overlapped by other cards can be used. Also, if the game is being played with the 'turn the corner' method, then a king can be placed on an ace and an ace can be placed on a king when building the waste pile. If the winner is to be decided over several rounds of the game, then a scoring system can be used. The number of cards remaining in the columns at the end of a round will be added to the player's total score. If a round has been won, then the number of cards remaining in the stock pile will be subtracted from the player's total score. Just like golf, the player with the LOWEST total score after all the rounds are over will be declared the winner. Another type of scoring method that can be used is 'move count', where the player who solves the game with the least number of moves wins.
Interesting Facts about Solitaire
When it comes to solitaire, intrigue never stops. Did you think that this mere card game is not just a pastime? There are actually people who play this game at a professional level. They train all year round to participate in massive international solitaire tournaments. What's more is that the payouts in some of these tournaments even exceed the annual salaries of some IT-related jobs! The earliest name given to solitaire was actually 'patience'. As each round of classic solitaire turned out to be highly strategic and time-consuming, such a game was seen as a way to develop one's patience. Aside from 'patience', solitaire has countless names, which connote some other aspect of the game's unwinding history. Interestingly enough, the solitaire card game really exploded in popularity thanks to Microsoft developing a digital version of the game and including it in every version of the Windows OS they released. This Microsoft digital solitaire game, which celebrated its 31-year anniversary, was actually created by an intern student named Wes Cherry, who didn't even receive any royalties for his iconic invention. When it comes to golf solitaire, it strongly features luck and chance. But, not all solitaire games are like this. In fact, 79% of all solitaire games are theoretically winnable! The player just has to have adequate skill, strategy, and experience to pull off the victory. To add more, solitaire is the epicenter of the gambling life. But ironically enough, it even managed to leave its imprint on education. How? Well, because the arrangement of the periodic table is based on the layout of solitaire. Lastly, we all know that applied mathematics is a major contributor to the advancement and it helped propel the world to where it is today. However, despite all its milestones, it is embarrassing that mathematics still cannot figure out the actual probability of winning a game of solitaire! They claim that the problem lies in there being so many variations of this card game so they couldn't even calculate the winning probability of the standard Klondike version either. And speaking of math and Klondike, it should completely blow your mind to know that this standard version of solitaire has a staggering 7000 trillion possible hands!