Saratoga

Written by Alan Horkan, based on work by Jonathan Blandford

3.64.1. Setup

Type of Deck Standard Deck
Stock Top left pile. The rest of the deck is placed here after dealing on to the Tableau. Cards are turned over one at a time to Waste. Two redeals.
Waste To be taken from Stock. Top card available for play.
Foundations Four piles top right. To be built up in suit from Ace to King. Topmost card in each Foundation can be played back on to the Tableau.
Tableau Seven piles. Place one card face up on all piles. Next row skip the first pile and place cards on all the other piles. Continue this process skipping one place to the right each row until there are seven rows with seven cards in the last pile. Essentially Saratoga is the same as Klondike only the all cards are face up to begin with. Being able to see all cards reduces the element of risk and makes Saratoga slightly easier than Klondike. Tableau can be built down in alternating colors. Builds of cards can be moved. Empty piles can only be filled by Kings or group of cards starting with a King.

3.64.2. Goal

Move all cards to the Foundation piles.

3.64.3. Rules

Cards in the Tableau are built down by alternating color. Builds of cards can be moved. An empty pile in the Tableau can be filled with a King or a group of cards with a King on the bottom.

Cards are flipped from the Stock to the Waste individually. Top card in Waste is in play. When Stock is empty, move all cards in Waste back to the Stock, maintaining order. You can go through the deck three times.

Foundations are built up in suit from Ace to King. Cards in Foundations are still in play. Double clicking on a card will move it to the appropriate Foundation pile if such a move is possible.

3.64.4. Scoring

Each card in the Foundation piles scores one point.

Maximum possible score: 52

3.64.5. Strategy

Don't give up the ship! Try brute force methods when the game seems over. Sometimes a combination of using cards already in the Foundation and rearranging sequences will free up some needed cards.