Scorpion Solitaire

How to play Scorpion Solitaire

Scorpion is a solitary card game played with a single shuffled 52-card deck, in the same family as Spider and Yukon but with a sting of its own: there are no separate foundation piles to build up. Every card is sorted directly inside the seven tableau columns, and the game is only won once those columns themselves settle into four complete same-suit sequences running from King down to Ace. You start with forty-nine cards dealt across the columns and three more waiting off to the side in a one-time reserve you may deal onto the board whenever you choose. From that scrambled beginning you excavate buried cards, chain long same-suit runs together, and gradually corral the whole pack into order. Because the reserve only offers a small amount of extra help and there is no stock to redraw from, not every shuffle can be solved — but the deals that do fall into place feel like a real puzzle cracked. This version tracks your move count, gives you unlimited undo, lets you replay the exact same shuffle with Restart Deal, and submits a ranked score whenever you clear the board.

The goal

Sort the entire deck, directly inside the tableau, into four complete sequences of the same suit running downward from King to Ace: K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, A. There are no foundation piles to send cards to — a finished sequence simply sits, fully assembled and face up, filling one whole tableau column from top to bottom. The instant four columns each hold one of these thirteen-card runs, the other three columns are necessarily completely empty (fifty-two cards split four ways into thirteen each), and the game recognises the win automatically — no button to press, no card to place by hand. Every move you make either edges a card closer to its rightful sequence or clears a path so a buried card can finally be reached.

The table

Seven tableau columns are dealt across the board. The first four columns each receive seven cards: the bottom three are dealt face down, and the top four are dealt face up. The last three columns also receive seven cards each, but every one of them is dealt face up from the very start, so a good deal of the deck is visible before you make a single move. That accounts for forty-nine of the fifty-two cards; the remaining three sit apart in a face-down reserve, ready to be dealt onto the board once, whenever you decide the moment is right. Use New Deal for a completely fresh shuffle, or Restart Deal to wipe the board and try the exact same shuffle again from scratch with a smarter plan.

How to move cards

• Tap any face-up card to select it. Selecting a card also selects every card sitting on top of it, all the way to the top of the column, because in Scorpion a group always moves together as a single unit.
• A selected group may land on a destination column only if its bottom (lowest) card is exactly one rank lower than, and the same suit as, the destination column's current top face-up card — for example a black 9 of spades may land on a black 10 of spades.
• This is the move that makes Scorpion distinctive: the group you pick up does NOT need to already be a tidy same-suit descending run. Grab a card and everything above it, valid sequence or not, and as long as the bottom card of that group satisfies the same-suit, one-rank-lower rule for its new home, the entire jumbled group moves together in one tap.
• Tap the same card again to cancel a selection, or tap any card in a different column to attempt the move there. A face-down card can never be selected — only a face-up card, and everything face-up stacked above it, is eligible to move.
• An empty column will accept only a King, or a group whose bottom card is a King. Guard your empty columns carefully: they are the single most powerful tool for untangling a jammed layout, since a King has nowhere else useful to go in an ordinary column.

The one-time reserve

Three cards never make it onto the initial tableau — they wait face down in a small reserve. Tap the Deal Reserve button whenever you like (there is no rush, and no penalty for waiting) to deal all three, one each, face up, onto the top of the first three columns. This can only happen once per deal; after you use it, the button stays disabled for the rest of that game. Because it only happens once, treat it as a resource: dealing it too early can bury a card you needed to reach, while dealing it too late wastes moves you could have spent unpacking a column with its help. There is no other stock and no waste pile in Scorpion — once the reserve is spent, every card you will ever touch is already somewhere on the board.

Winning — with no foundations at all

Scorpion has a genuinely different finish line from most patience games: there is no foundation area waiting in a corner of the screen to receive cards one suit at a time. Instead, the tableau itself is the finish line. The game constantly watches the board, and the moment four of the seven columns each contain a complete, face-up, same-suit run from King at the bottom down to Ace at the top — thirteen cards exactly, with the other three columns completely emptied out — it declares the game won on the spot. You do not need to do anything special to 'collect' a finished run; simply leave it alone once it is complete and it counts. A celebratory banner appears with your final move count and score, and your score is automatically submitted to the leaderboard.

Strategy tips

• Scan for same-suit chains you can join together early. Because a moving group need not already be ordered, you can often walk a buried card several columns closer to its finished sequence in a single audacious multi-card move, even through cards of the wrong suit or rank sitting above it.
• Prioritise flipping face-down cards in the first four columns over almost anything else. A hidden card cannot help you, and the sooner every column's contents are visible, the sooner you can plan several moves ahead with full information.
• Hold the reserve in reserve. Deal it only once you have a clear idea of where those three cards will land, or once you are genuinely stuck — dealing it blind can bury a card you badly needed, and there is no way to recover that option later in the same game.
• Treat an empty column like a precious resource. Before you empty one, make sure you actually have a King ready to move into it, or a strong reason to park a group there temporarily — an empty column with no King nearby is a wasted opportunity.
• Use Undo liberally while you plan; it costs nothing beyond the moves you actually commit to keeping, and Restart Deal lets you attack the exact same shuffle again once you have spotted a smarter opening sequence.

Frequently asked questions