You're never alone with cards for company

Original card games for one

patiences and solitaires by David Parlett

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While browsing the Net the other day I suddenly noticed that many Patience games of my invention appear on a variety of websites without any mention of their authorship. So I decided to open up a section containing all those for which I am responsible. I have shifted into it the games of Black Hole and Penguin, which formerly came under Original Card Games, and have added seven others. All first appeared in my "Penguin Book of Patience" (1979), except Rittenhouse, which I introduced in "Teach Yourself Card Games for One" (1994), and Sticko, which I have just devised. I hope you enjoy them, preferably with real cards (as I do), but, failing that, by playing them online at Tom Warfield's long-running and highly comprehensive Pretty Good Solitaire site. You might also like to click here for my history of patience games.

Archway	A Victorian classic updated for modern tastes (2 packs)
Black Hole	Cosmic golf for one player (1 pack)
Buffalo Bill	Best played in wide open spaces (2 packs)
Curds & Whey	A novel member of the spider family (1 pack)
Gay Gordons	Dance your way through this elimination game (1 pack)
Penguin	One of my most popular games (1 pack)
Rittenhouse	As played by Geoffrey T. Spaulding at Rittenhouse Manor (2 packs)
Sticko	Fiendish adaptation of my two-player game Stucco (32-card pack)
Striptease	A tantalising game that doesn't always reveal all (1 pack)

Inventing games with ordinary cards is fun but doesn't pay the rent. These games are free, but if you think any of them worthy of recompense and would like to make a donation then clicking on "Thank you!" will enable you to contribute securely through Paypal (whether or not you have a Paypal account).

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July 2012

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