Solitaire

Gray and damp, but not actually raining. I played a game of Spider, the solitaire that my Dad always played on vacation. It uses two decks and is hard to win. I figure it's good for my hands to shuffle 104 cards 10 times at least once a day. I often play more than once--my rule is I can play as many times as it takes until I win! So if I win the first game (rare), I only play once that day. It is hard to define why the game is so appealing to me. One part is tradition--the game reminds me of watching my Dad play and of showing younger people like my daughter or my nephew how to play. It's fairly complicated to explain and is available to play on line as well. There are advantages to that, like no shuffling and hints, but I only play with real cards. My favorite deck is getting pretty worn out. I know which card is the four of spades from the crease in the back, but that's not much of a help and sometimes I forget when I'm concentrating. After shuffling the decks 5 times, I deal ten cards face down. Then I repeat that 3 times, so there are 4 cards face down in 10 piles. I deal four more cards face down on the first four piles, to make the numbers come out right. Then I deal 10 more cards face up. If you're counting, that's 54 cards, so I have 50 left. I study the 10 cards I can see and put lower cards on higher cards--a Jack on a queen, a five on a six. They don't have to be the same suit, but it's better if they are, so I place the ones that match first, if there are any. If the cards are the same suit, they can be moved as a unit (unto another, higher card). So the Jack and Queen of diamonds can be moved together onto the King of diamonds. Then the card underneath can be turned up and played if there's a place for it. If you play all the cards in a pile, you have a space. A space is very handy, critical to winning the game, so I move cards from piles with fewer cards before the piles that still have 5 or 4 cards in them. You can put a card (or run of matching cards) in a space to rearrange something or turn over a card. When everything has been played that can be (or that you want to play) and all the spaces are filled, you deal 10 more cards face up on top of the 10 piles. It's a mess. Now you have a King in your space (Kings can only be removed when all the lower cards of that suit are piled on it; you win when all 8 suits are complete) or a 5 on a 4. By planning and thinking, you decide how best to resolve the chaos. Sometimes that leads to more cards being turned up and played and more spaces opening up, but sometimes there are few or even no cards you can play. They mysteriously seem to come in groups. I had 4 Kings in my first deal (not a good sign). Later, there were lots of Jacks. Perhaps it is the sense of following rules and making order out of chaos. Or the satisfaction of solving a complicated puzzle. I start each game naively hoping that it will go well--oh great, there's a two of Spades I can put on the three! As it devolves into a mess after 3 more deals, I say, Yeah, this one's not coming out...Usually I can tell within the first few deals if it's going well, but sometimes a really great deal will be followed by a deluge of kings or a deal with no moves...and sometimes I can pull out a surprise win on the last deal. I think I'll go try again!