Scorpion Solitaire Variations

Scorpion has a short rule book, so a small change makes a big difference to how the game feels. The most important choice is what may go into an empty column. Others concern the stock, the hidden cards and what happens to a finished run. Here are the variations you are most likely to meet, which ones our game offers, and a few related games worth trying. For the standard game, see how to play Scorpion Solitaire.

Options You Can Change in Our Game

Both of these are in Settings, under House rules. A change takes effect with your next deal, and games played with each empty-column rule are counted separately in your statistics.

Any card can fill an empty column

Standard rule (the default): only a King, together with the cards on top of it, may be moved into an empty column.

House rule: any face-up card, together with the cards on top of it, may be moved into an empty column. This version is often played under the name Wasp.

It is a small change with a large effect. With Kings only, an empty column is a one-time gift: a King goes in and stays. With any card allowed, an empty column becomes a workbench. You can lift a group out of the way, make the move it was blocking, and often empty the column again a few moves later.

Example: the 4 of diamonds lies under the 5 of diamonds in the same column, with a Jack of clubs between them. Under the standard rule you must wait until the Jack of clubs can go onto the Queen of clubs. With the house rule and an empty column, you simply move the Jack (carrying the 5 and everything above it) into the space. Now the 4 of diamonds is the end card of its column, and you can bring it over onto the 5.

How much easier is it? In our own testing, a computer search won roughly one random shuffle in eight under the Kings-only rule, and more than eight in ten with any card allowed. If you find standard Scorpion discouraging, this is the setting to try.

Good to know: with this rule on, the Hint button avoids suggesting moves that only lift a card off the card it already belongs on. Such moves are allowed, but they undo your own work.

Winnable deals only

On (the default): when you press New Game, the game shuffles, then quickly checks whether that shuffle can be won under the rules you have chosen. If not, it tries the next deal number, and the next, until it finds one that can. You never see the rejected shuffles.

Off: every New Game is a plain random shuffle, exactly as if you had dealt the cards on your kitchen table. Under the standard rules, most of those can't be won.

We turned this on by default because losing to a shuffle that never had a solution isn't much fun, and in Scorpion that happens most of the time. A few things are worth knowing:

• Winnable doesn't mean easy. There may be only one narrow path through, and a single wrong move can close it. Hint will tell you if that has happened.
• The check looks for deals that can be solved fairly directly, so the very hardest winnable shuffles are skipped along with the impossible ones.
• If you type a deal number yourself in Settings, or follow a link to one, you get exactly that deal. It is not checked.
• Your win rate with this setting on will be higher than a table player's. Purists may prefer it off.

Variations in How Others Play

These are differences you may find in rule books or in other versions of the game. Our game uses the first choice listed in each case.

How many columns have hidden cards

In the usual layout, the first four columns each begin with three face-down cards, for twelve hidden cards. Some players hide cards in only the first three columns, for nine hidden cards. Fewer hidden cards means more information at the start and a slightly easier game.

What happens to a finished run

At a real table, a finished King-to-Ace run usually just stays where it is, filling one column. The game is won when the four columns that are left each hold one complete run. On a screen it is more common to lift each finished run off the table, as our game does. That frees a column, which can then take a King. It makes the last part of the game a little kinder, and it is easier to see how far you have come.

Dealing the stock

The three stock cards nearly always go onto the first three columns, all at once, face up, at a moment you choose. A stricter table rule says you may deal them only when no other move is left. Our game lets you deal whenever you like, which is the more common rule and gives you one more decision to make.

Playing without Undo

With real cards there is no taking a move back. If you would like that challenge on screen, simply don't press Undo. Since nearly everything is face up, Scorpion is a fair test of planning when played this way, but expect to win far less often.

Related Games

Three Blind Mice is a close cousin. It spreads the deck over ten shorter columns, hides a few cards in some of them, and keeps just two cards in reserve. The moving and building rules are the same as Scorpion's, and the wider layout gives you more room to work.

Spider Solitaire shares Scorpion's goal of building King-to-Ace runs in one suit, but uses two decks, deals new rows from a large stock, and lets you choose one, two or four suits. With one suit it is far more forgiving.

Yukon Solitaire moves cards the way Scorpion does, any face-up card with everything on top of it, but builds down in alternating colors and sends cards up to four foundation piles, as Klondike Solitaire does. If you like Scorpion's way of moving cards and would like to win more often, FreeCell is another good choice: every card is face up, and nearly every deal has a solution.