Double Solitaire

Overview

Double Solitaire takes the familiar shape of Klondike and makes it a race. Instead of quietly solving your own layout, you are playing against an opponent chasing the same eight foundations.

You and the AI each get a complete Klondike board — seven tableau columns, a stock and a waste. What is shared is the middle: eight foundations, two per suit, built Ace to King, and either of you may play onto any of them.

That single change rewrites the strategy. In ordinary Klondike you can hold a card back and send it home at the ideal moment. Here, holding back can lose you the card. If the AI plays the 7 of Hearts you were saving, the lane moves on to the 8 without you.

Goal and scoring

Every card you send to a foundation is worth one point. There are 104 cards in play, since both sides have their own 52-card deck, and the winner is whoever has more cards home when everything is finished or the game stalls.

So a tidy tableau is not the objective. The question is how quickly you can convert what you hold into foundation cards before the other side takes the opening.

Shared foundations

Foundations build upward by suit from Ace to King, and there are two per suit — so both players can be working the same suit at once.

This creates a situation ordinary solitaire never does: your progress is also your opponent's opportunity. Put the 7 of Hearts down and you have opened the lane for their 8. Leave it, and they may place it themselves and take the point.

Often the strongest move is not the one that most improves your tableau. It is the one that claims a foundation card before the AI can.

Your tableau

• Build downward in alternating colours.
• A valid face-up run moves as a group.
• Face-down cards turn up as the cards above them leave.
• Only a King, or a run led by a King, fills an empty column.

If you know Klondike, every individual move here is familiar. The difficulty is in when you make them.

Turn-Based mode

The thinking version. On your turn you may make as many tableau and foundation moves as you like. Drawing from the stock ends your turn and hands control to the AI — and you get only one draw per turn.

One thing worth knowing: recycling is free. When your stock runs empty, turning the waste back over does not end your turn. You keep control and may immediately draw again. So an empty stock is a good position to be in, not a bad one.

That gives the mode a rhythm: play out every useful move first, because the draw that ends your turn should be the last thing you do.

Race mode

No turns at all. You and the AI play simultaneously, and the stock deals three cards at a time rather than one. Nothing ever passes control — the only limit on you is how fast you can see the moves.

Race adds a second skill on top of solitaire: tempo. A card you can see is a card the AI may also be about to play. Spending ten seconds looking for the perfect line is often worse than making the obvious move now.

Strategy and tips

• The foundations are not yours. Every card you place opens the next rank for your opponent too. Weigh the point you gain against the lane you open.
• Claim contested cards early. If you hold the next card in a shared sequence, playing it may be worth it purely to deny the AI.
• Uncover hidden cards. Same as Klondike — face-down cards are the real constraint on both sides.
• Empty your moves before drawing in Turn-Based. The draw is what surrenders the turn, so it should be last.
• Recycle without fear. It costs you nothing and gives you another draw immediately.
• Keep moving in Race. An obvious move made now beats a better move found too late.

Controls and features

• Drag cards to legal destinations, or tap a card and choose a highlighted one.
• Tap the stock to draw — one card in Turn-Based, three in Race — or to recycle the waste when it is empty.
• Choose Turn-Based or Race before you start.

If you liked Double Solitaire

Klondike is the game underneath this one, played alone and at your own pace — the same tableau rules with no one competing for your foundations.

For a different kind of pressure, FreeCell deals every card face up and makes the whole puzzle visible from the first move.