The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
PRETTY GOOD SOLITAIRE
This is a reprint from June 2007 issue of the TOE (The Outer Edge)
By Jim Thornton
As I have mentioned before Microsoft included the popular single player card game solitaire when they first introduced Windows 3.0 in 1988. The reason was to get the new computer user used to using a mouse to point and click. And here 19 years later, Microsoft is still including the same game in their latest version of Windows called Vista.
The goal of the game is to play the deck of 52 cards so that you complete the game into four sequential stacks, called the foundations, sorted by suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades). Turning over one or three cards at a time from a deck, called the wastepile, and placing them on alternating colored (red or black) numerical sequential order on one of the seven stacks of cards, called the tableau, or returning the card back to the wastepile. This game is called Klondike and is less frequently known as Chinaman, Fascination, or Triangle. It is incorrectly called Canfield, which is a totally different game. Did you know that solitaire in England is called Patience?
There is a wonderful collection of 660 different solitaire games ranging from the classic games of Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, etc., to the usual games of Pyramid, Cruel, Gaps (Montana), Crescent, Diplomat, Indian Patience, etc., and to the original games of Demons and Thieves, Aces and Kings, Double FreeCell, etc. The collection is called Pretty Good Solitaire and contains a solitaire game for every mood - whether you want an easy mindless game or an intellectual challenge, you will find it in Pretty Good Solitaire.
Some of the more interesting features of Pretty Good Solitaire that the Microsoft solitaire game lacks is it is easy to play - you have the choice of the standard drag and drop or use its popular and quicker point and right button mouse click to move the card(s). You can reverse every previous move in sequence and redo them again if you wish. Stop the game in progress, exit the program, and Pretty Good Solitaire will save it for you so that when you return you can begin playing the game right back where you left off. If you believe you are an outstanding solitaire player, you can submit your statistics to the Pretty Good Solitaire website and see how you rank against other players.
Other features is that you can select the appearance of the images on the face side of the cards, select one of 16 backside colors and images, size the cards (automatic, small, standard, or large), and select one of 56 background colors and images for your playing table. There are more optional backsides available - Cats, Christmas, Egyptian, Halloween, Kids, More Cats, Numbers, Patriots, Royal, Science Fiction, St. Patrick's Day, Tarot, Thanksgiving, Traditional, and Valentine's Day. Some of the other features including the option to save or not the current game; using the king only option meaning that the only the king may be placed in an empty tableau location; using the auto play option where for example the game will complete a move for you; using the sound playing option to hear the cards being shuffled; a full list of the rules are available; select the one or three card option; a hint feature is available should you need any assistance; and an on-line discussion group is available. A common use of Pretty Good Solitaire is to play a game or two while waiting "on-hold" on the telephone.
My favorite three games are Klondike, which I access from a desktop icon, Pyramid, and Ukrainian Solitaire. The latter game fits into the challenging category as I have yet to win a game. Ukrainian Solitaire is a cross between Russian Solitaire and Spider. One theory is a college classman learned it from a fellow classman who learned from his Ukrainian grandmother. It is rated as Hard with a 13 percent chance of winning (mostly skill). In comparison, Klondike is rated as Medium with 80 percent chance (skill and luck balanced), and Pyramid is Medium with 14 percent (mostly luck).
The current version from Pretty Good Solitaire is 11.0.1, is Vista compatible, and is downloadable for $24, or if you wish to purchase the CD for $31. Either way includes all future updates through to the end of 2009 and there is an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee. From their website, you can download a 30-day trial version to learn just how wonderful the program is. There are several other games programs available from this website - Action Solitaire, Free Cell Wizard, Most Popular Solitaire, Pretty Good Mahjongg, Spider Wizard, and for Mac OS X users - Solitaire Plus.
