Scorpion Solitaire Rules

The different piles

There are three different types of piles in Scorpion Solitaire. They are:

• The Tail: The deck of three cards in the upper left corner
• The Body: The seven piles on the main table.
• The Head / Foundations: The four piles in the upper right corner.

The setup

The Tableau piles in the body are each dealt 7 cards, with the first three cards of the first four piles being dealt face down. The remaining three cards are placed face down into the tail.

The objective

To win Scorpion solitaire, you must build 4 piles on the table, each with a descending sequence of cards in the same suit, running from the king to the ace.

Allowed moves

• Move one or more face up cards from one Tableau pile to another. You can move any sequence of cards from the top of a pile to any other pile where the top card is of the same suit as the moved card and is a rank above. For example you can move the four of hearts onto the five of hearts, or the queen of diamonds onto the king of diamonds. You could also for instance move the pile consisting of the jack of spades, ten of spades, three of clubs, and king of hearts onto the queen of spades. You could also move any pile that leads with a queen of diamonds on top of the king of diamonds.
  Only kings can be placed onto empty piles.
• Deal from the tail. You can deal the last remaining cards to the first three piles in the body. Traditionally in Scorpion you can only deal the tail when you've exhausted your initial moves.
  When the Clear completed runs option is selected you can deal from the tail at any point at your leisure, making the game slightly easier.
• Flip over an exposed face down card. If at any point a face down card is exposed it must be flipped face up. The game does this automatically for you.
• You can Undo as many times as you like. The game offers unlimited undos. Each Undo counts as a new move though, so if you're trying to win the game in as few moves as possible you should be careful about how many undos you use.
• Discard a completed run from the table. Traditionally a completed run remains on the table until the game has ended, making the game much harder as the run now has to be played around. When the Clear completed runs option is selected runs are removed from the table as they are completed and moved to the foundations. This clears up the table, making room for you to better form the remaining runs and rendering the game slightly easier. The game will still pose a significant challenge, so don't take this as an easy way out.

Time and Moves

The game counts the moves you make, and measures the time it takes to finish the game, so you can compete against your previous best games if you want.

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