Scorpion Solitaire

Most patience games make you tidy a pile before you can lift it. This one does not. Point at any face-up card and it comes away with the entire column stacked on top of it, out of order, mixed suits, whatever happens to be sitting there. The whole load travels and drops in one gesture. It is the single rule that gives the game its character, and it means one move can rearrange a board that looked finished. The deal is forty-nine cards in seven columns of seven. The first four columns start with three cards face-down; the last three are open from the beginning. Three cards are held back. Building is strict where moving is loose. A card lands only on the next rank up of the same suit: seven of spades on eight of spades, never on eight of hearts. Assemble a full run from King down to Ace in one column and it lifts off to the foundation by itself. Four runs and the deal is done. Those three held-back cards are your one lifeline. Deal them and they drop onto the first three columns, once per game, never again. Playing them at the wrong moment can bury the very card you were digging toward. Works without a connection, a hundred moves of undo, statistics, card backs and table colours to pick from, 33 languages.