Patience (game)

'Patience' is the earliest recorded name for this type of card game. The word is French in origin, these games being "regarded as an exercise in patience."[1] Although the name solitaire became common in North America for this type of game during 20th century, Parlett notes that there are good reasons for preferring the name 'patience'. Firstly, a patience is a card game, whereas a solitaire is any one-player game, including those played with dominoes or peg and board games. Secondly, any game of patience may be played competitively by two or more players.[1] In practice, in North America the name 'solitaire' is often used totum pro parte to refer to single-player card games, although sometimes the term 'card solitaire' is used for clarity. Meanwhile, in other countries 'solitaire' specifically refers to the board game of peg solitaire. Both 'solitaire' and 'patience' are also sometimes used loosely to refer specifically to the game of Klondike.

Patience-sized playing cards (bottom) are smaller than regular poker or bridge cards (top); this is because a game where cards are laid out may take up a large amount of table space[2]

The game generally involves manipulating a layout of cards with a goal of sorting them in some manner. It is possible to play the same games competitively (often a head to head race) and cooperatively.

Patience games typically involve dealing cards from a shuffled deck into a prescribed arrangement on a tabletop, from which the player attempts to reorder the deck by suit and rank through a series of moves transferring cards from one place to another under prescribed restrictions. Some games allow for the reshuffling of the decks, or the placement of cards into new or "empty" locations. In the most familiar, general form of patience, the object of the game is to build up four blocks of cards going from ace to king in each suit, taking cards from the layout if they appear on the table.

There is a vast array of variations on the patience theme, using either one or more decks of cards, with rules of varying complexity and skill levels. Many of these have been converted to electronic form and are available as computer games. The inclusion of Klondike Solitaire with Microsoft Windows from 1990 onward had an especially big impact in popularizing solitaire with the general public.[3]

The game is thought to be German or Scandinavian in origin.[4] The game became popular in France in the early 19th century, reaching Britain and America in the latter half. The earliest known recording of a game of patience occurred in 1788 in the German game anthology Das neue Königliche L'Hombre-Spiel.[5] Before this, there were no literary mentions of such games in large game compendiums such as Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester (1674) and Abbé Bellecour's Academie des Jeux (1674).

Patience was first mentioned in literature shortly after cartomantic layouts were developed circa 1765, suggesting a connection between the two. This theory is supported by the name of the game in Danish and Norwegian, kabal(e). An 1895 account describes a variant of the game exclusively used for cartomancy.[4]

The first collection of patience card games in the English language is attributed to Lady Adelaide Cadogan through her Illustrated Games of Patience, published in about 1870 and reprinted several times.[6] Other collections quickly followed such as Patience by Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney (1869),[7] Amusement for Invalids by Annie B. Henshaw (1870),[8] and later Dick's Games of Patience, published by Dick and Fitzgerald.[9] Other books about patience written towards the end of the 19th century were by H. E. Jones (a.k.a. Cavendish), Angelo Lewis (a.k.a. Professor Hoffman), Basil Dalton, Ernest Bergholt, and Mary Whitmore Jones.

Patience games are commonly grouped together according to family, where related games such as Klondike games, Forty Thieves games, or Matching games are classified together. David Parlett instead adopts a system of classification based on the amount of information available about the cards at the start of the game (closed, open, or half-open), and based on the process of manipulating the cards (building, or packing).

In most games of patience the overall aim is to arrange all thirteen cards of each suit in order in a "family" running from ace to king. Normally the ace forms the "foundation" on which a two of the same suit is placed, followed by a three and so on. This is known as "building" and all such games are, technically, builders. However, in many games the cards must be assembled in reverse order on another part of the layout called the "tableau". They can then be built in the right sequence on the foundations. This interim process of reverse building is called "packing", and games that use this technique are thus called "packers". Games that use neither technique are called "non-builders".[10] There are also specials kinds of packer games which may be further sub-classified as 'blockades', 'planners' and 'spiders'.[10]

Patience games may be classified by the degree to which the cards are revealed. In "open" games, all the cards are visible throughout the game and the player has to use powers of analysis to solve the patience. In "closed" games, cards are drawn from a face-down stock and the player has to use judgement because the sequence of cards is unknown until they appear. In between is a hybrid group which Parlett calls "half-open".[11]

• List of patience games
• Glossary of Patience terms, not including peg solitaire.
• Patience sorting, a computer algorithm
• Solitaire

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Solitaire.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Solitaire card games

• Lady Cadogan's Illustrated Games of Solitaire or Patience, by Adelaide Cadogan, 1914, from Project Gutenberg
• Games of patience for one or more players, second series, by Mary Whitmore Jones, about 1898, original book-scan from Archive.org
• "Patience" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.