Card games

Four card games, four kinds of challenge

Silk Spider Solitaire follows classic spider rules with two decks, ten columns and a choice of one, two or four suits. Summit Solitaire is a quick climbing game: play a card one rank above or below the open card, and build long runs for big scores. Tally Fifteen turns the deck into a sum puzzle, where you clear groups of cards that add up to exactly 15. Pip Grid is a placement game, where 25 cards go onto a 5×5 grid and every row and column scores as a poker hand.

Luck and skill

Every deal is shuffled, so no two games are the same, and not every deal of Summit Solitaire or Tally Fifteen can be completed. Skill decides how far you get. In Summit Solitaire, choosing between two playable columns can make the difference between a run of three cards and a run of eight. In Pip Grid, deciding which rows to save for flushes and which columns to keep for pairs matters more than any single card.

Where to start

If you know solitaire, start with Silk Spider Solitaire on one suit, which is the gentlest way into spider rules, and use undo freely while you learn. Summit Solitaire takes a minute to learn and suits a short break. Tally Fifteen is good mental arithmetic practice, and Pip Grid rewards players who know their poker hands. Each game keeps its best score in your browser.

Scoring at a glance

Silk Spider Solitaire starts you on 500 points, takes 1 for every move or deal and adds 100 for each finished king-to-ace run. In Summit Solitaire the first card of a run scores 10, the second 20, the third 30 and so on, and clearing the board earns 25 for every card left in the stock. Tally Fifteen scores a set by its size squared times 10, so two cards earn 40 and five earn 250, with 300 more for drawing the last card. In Pip Grid a pair is worth 2, a flush 20, a full house 25 and a royal flush 100.