’72 – The Superior Solitaire Card Game

I don’t know why exactly, but recently I’ve found myself playing more games of Solitaire, or Klondike, than in the past—to the extent that I’ve devised several of my own versions. After much experimenting, I’ve finally come up with the best version of the game ever invented. Since I’m getting constant requests for the details of this game, I’ve decided to write out a description here to share with everyone in the world.

It’s called: ’72 – because 1972 was the year I started my first band, started drinking, and also is the pinnacle of English-speaking culture (at least for movies, TV, and music—not children’s books, necessarily). Also, the game uses 72 cards. That’s a big deck, and handling it—shuffling it, etc., will do a lot for your card handling skills. This might be useful if you are eventually pursuing a career as a croupier.

To build this large deck, you will need two (or more) standard, 52-card, French-suited decks with the same backs. You can get by with a mishmash of backs—though that ends up being a bit like cheating with marked cards—but seeing how you’re only cheating yourself, it’s up to you. What you want to end up with is, first: a standard deck, Ace, 2 through 10, Jack, Queen, King, of the suits: heart, spade, diamond, and club. Next, from the additional deck, add an additional set of aces. And finally, add 16 Jokers! That’s a lot of Jokers to come up with—but however you do it, it’s worth it. That makes 72 cards, total, or I don’t know my math.

Shuffle the cards well, naturally. You’ll need a large table. Lay out a horizontal row of 10 cards, all facedown. Next, starting left to right, place one card faceup, and the next nine facedown. Go back to the left, and on the first facedown stack, place one face up, and then across, place 8 facedown. (This is much like the layout for traditional Klondike.) So what you end up with is a horizontal row of ten cards, with the far left stack, one down, one up, next is two down, one up, and so on, until the far right stack has ten down, one up.

You will then have seven cards left over. These are free cards. You can lay them faceup on the table or hold them in your hand—whatever is easiest for you. Now you play the traditional Klondike/Solitaire game (black on red, red on black, descending numbers, etc.—I’m assuming you know that game, already—I’m not going into it). The differences here are as follows. You don’t have a stack to go through for additional cards to play—but rather your free cards that you can use at any time. Next, the Jokers. When you come across a faceup Joker, place it above. When you amass four Jokers, you can then take a faceup Ace and put it on top of the four Jokers. This starts the same-suit stacks that you’re trying to complete.

Since there are eight Aces, you must find the second Ace of the same suit to continue with the stack. Now there will be four Jokers, two Aces of the same suit, and then you can continue with 2, 3, etc. on up to Jack, Queen, and King. Once you have competed the four, same-suit stacks, each built on four Jokers, the game is over.

Now, here is the big thing—why I like this game so much. Instead of simply playing until you win (it’s not going to happen much, unless you’re a genius, and lucky) or lose (which can happen fast), you can continue each game by “cheating”—which isn’t really cheating—and this is how you tally a score. When you get to the point where you are stuck, take a card from the bottom of the far right-hand stack. If that card allows you to continue, do so. If not, take the next bottom card from the far right-hand stack.

You must keep track of each card you take from the bottom. Write it down, as you go. This is your score. So, say, if you end up needing to take 13 facedown cards, in order to continue your play until the game is over, then “13” is your final score. It goes without saying that the best score you can achieve is “0”—and the larger the number, the lower the score. After playing this game countless times, I’ve scored anywhere from 0 (not too often, but it does happen), to—I believe my worst was 30. That’s a real bad game, 30!

Because of the wide variety of scores, it makes this game unpredictable and fun. There is a combination of luck and skill involved. You can see your skill increase, but even the most skilled player can’t regularly score 0. And even the worst player might hit it. Since you can keep track of your scores, you can essentially compete against yourself (or even others, if so desired), and you can keep track of progress. You might even want to create a graph composed of your ongoing scores, to note improvement—or perhaps the unpredictable vagaries of the thing we all need and desire, but don’t fully understand—called luck. You might even want to create a spreadsheet, or a PowerPoint presentation—and pretend that you’re employed!

Good Luck, and Happy Solitaire!

—RR 1.10.21