Australian Patience

Intro

Australian Solitaire is a popular card game played with a 52-card deck of standard playing cards. It's a variation of Yukon Solitaire and is similar to Klondike Solitaire. However, it's harder than Yukon Solitaire, largely because it uses a stock. It's a constant battle of needing cards that can't be reached.

It's been said that an average player can win about 20% of their Australian Solitaire games and that a very good player can win about 33%.

Those who find Australian Solitaire too challenging might wish to try Easy Australian Solitaire. It has 2 passes through the stock instead of only 1. That extra pass makes a world of difference.

Layout

The game screen is made up of 4 different areas.

The tableau is located in the upper-center of the screen. It consists of 7 columns. Each column either contains a vertically overlapped pile of one or more face-up cards or is empty, depending on the current state of the game. This is where most of the action takes place during gameplay.

The foundations area is located in the top right, above the tableau. It consists of 4 rectangles. Each rectangle is a foundation where a suit can be built from the ace to the king.

Located in the upper-left corner are the stock and waste. They work together to supply one playable card at a time.

The stock is a container for the reserve cards that will be put into play as the game progresses. It normally contains a pile of face-down squared cards. The waste is directly to the right of the stock.

Whenever the player clicks on the stock, it deals 1 face-up squared card to the waste. Only the top card in the waste pile is playable. Other than from the stock, no card may be sent to the waste.

Australian Solitaire allows only 1 pass through the stock. However, Easy Australian Solitaire allows 2 passes. To reset an empty stock, the player must click on it. This causes the entire waste pile to be moved into the stock, face-down and squared. In no other way can cards be put into the stock.

Goal

The goal of Australian Solitaire is to build all 4 ordered suits from the ace to the king in the foundations.

How to Play Australian Solitaire

When the game starts, a pile of 4 face-up cards is dealt into each of the 7 columns in the tableau. The remaining 24 cards are sent to the stock.

In order to win the game, the player must build all 4 suits in the foundations from the ace to the king, one card at a time. The player may move a card to the foundations either from the bottom of a tableau pile or from the waste pile. A card may be moved from a foundation to the tableau, as long as it's a legal move.

In this game, technically, only one card may be moved at a time. However, if there are cards on top of the source card and the move is to a pile, they all come along for the ride. Piles can sometimes grow very long. If not a king, the source card must be moved to a target card at the bottom of a pile that is next in suited rank to the source card.

Since the king has no next-in-rank, it can't be moved to another pile, so it must be moved into a vacant column. The king is the only rank allowed to be placed into an empty column.

When all cards have been moved to the player's liking, a click on the stock causes a face-up playable card to be dealt onto the waste pile. The player again has an opportunity to move cards around. The process repeats until either the game is won or until no more cards can be sent to the foundations.

Strategy

Here are nine gameplay tips on how to beat Australian Solitaire:

• Plan moves carefully. Attempt to find a combination of consecutive moves that accomplish some useful objective, like placing a waste card.
• To verify whether a card may be moved or not, first find the card that it must be moved onto (or, if it's a king to be moved, an empty column). Then, in order to expose that card, find the card onto which the offending card must be moved. The chain continues until either a bottom card is encountered, which means that the original move may be accomplished, or a card is missing in the chain.
• Often a column can easily be vacated and a king moved from a pile into it. However, if moving the king provides no real gain, then it might be better to delay the process. Perhaps later in the game the potential empty column can be put to better use.
• If at all possible, place all four kings in the tableau, each heading its own pile. However, if enough columns can't be vacated, kings in the waste should be given top priority. A king buried in the waste pile can make winning very difficult.
• Avoid making unsafe moves. For example, a move that causes a lower ranking card to be higher in the same pile than a higher ranking card of the same suit, is unsafe. At some point, a conflict could occur because the lower ranked card cannot be move to the bottom of its own column.
• When a king is at the head of its column (and sometimes even if it's not at the head), then it's always safe to build down from it by rank and suit. So long as no unsafe move is played during the preparation, it's always safe to move a card to a foundation. As well, there is no real reason to ever remove a card from a foundation.
• More than anything, the game is about vacating the stock and waste.
• Playing all possible moves before clicking on the stock normally isn't necessary and can be counterproductive. It's rather simple to determine if the top waste card can be placed onto a pile or not. If it can't, then no number of moves can alter the fact before at least clicking on the stock. Similarly, a card that can be moved from a pile to a foundation will still be available after clicking on the stock.
• When a new game begins, the player might wish to check the tableau for a deadlock. It's not possible to create a deadlock by moving cards around. Although it's a rather rare occurrence, a deadlock renders the game unwinnable. As an example, suppose that, from top to bottom, the sequence 8H-6H-7H exists within a pile. The 6H can never be placed onto the 7H and can therefore never be sent to a foundation.