Addiction Solitaire Strategy: 9 Tips to Win More

In Addiction Solitaire you can see every card, and at most a handful of moves are possible at any moment. That makes it feel like a game of pure luck: you tap what can be tapped until nothing moves. It isn't. The order in which you make those few moves decides whether a hand stalls with twelve cards in place or thirty. The tips below are the habits that make the difference.

New to the game? Read the Addiction Solitaire rules first. They are short.

1. Think About the Gap You Leave Behind

Every move fills one gap and opens another, in the place the card came from. Before you move a card, look at the card on its left. That neighbor decides what the new gap will take.

• If the neighbor is a King, the new gap will be blocked. You have just spent one of your four gaps.
• If the neighbor is a low card whose next card is buried somewhere awkward, the new gap is still alive but may sit unused for a while.
• If the neighbor is the card just below one you badly want to move, wonderful. You are setting up your next move.

This one habit, glancing left before you tap, is worth more than everything else on this page.

2. Keep Your Gaps Away From Kings

A hand ends when all four gaps sit behind Kings. So treat each live gap as precious. When you have a choice of two moves and one of them opens a gap behind a King, make the other move first and see whether the board changes.

Sometimes a gap behind a King cannot be avoided. Then at least make sure it is the last thing you do in that corner of the table, after you have taken every other move it allowed.

3. Get the 2s Into the First Column Early

No card in a row can be in its final place until a 2 starts that row. Until then, everything you arrange in that row will be picked up again at the next shuffle. So when a gap opens in the first column, fill it with a 2 promptly, and when a 2 can be freed by a short chain of moves, that chain is usually worth making.

4. Choose Which 2 With Care

When a first-column gap could take more than one 2, ask two questions about each candidate:

1. Can its 3 follow soon? Look at what is in the second place of that row. If it is a gap, or a card that can move away shortly, the 2 whose 3 is easy to reach is the better pick.
2. What gap does this 2 leave behind? A 2 that is sitting right after a King leaves a blocked gap when it moves. A 2 sitting after a 6 leaves a gap that takes a 7.

Also check whether a few cards of one suit already happen to sit in the right columns of that row. A row that reads "(gap) 3♥ 4♥" is begging for the 2 of Hearts: one move puts three cards in place.

5. Follow the Chain Before You Start It

Moves come in chains. Moving the 8 of Hearts opens a gap after, say, the 4 of Clubs; that lets the 5 of Clubs move, which opens a gap after the Jack of Spades; and so on. Before you make the first move, trace the chain with your eyes as far as you can. You are looking for two things:

• Where does it end? A chain that ends behind a King costs you a gap. A chain that ends by handing you a first-column gap is a gift.
• Does it loop back? Often a chain returns a gap to the row you care about, right where you need it.

When two chains are available, play the one that does not end behind a King first. The other chain will usually still be there afterward.

6. Build From the Left, Not the Middle

A tidy run of 8-9-10-Jack in the middle of a row looks like progress, but it only counts once it connects all the way back to a 2 in the first column. Until then a shuffle will scatter it. Put your effort where it sticks: extend the runs that are already anchored on the left.

The exception is late in a shuffle period, when nothing anchored can move. Then any legal move that keeps a gap alive is better than none.

7. Squeeze Every Move Out Before You Shuffle

A shuffle keeps only the cards that are in place. So before you shuffle, try to get one more card in place, and then one more. Two extra cards locked before each of three shuffles is six fewer cards to sort out at the end, and the last shuffle period is always the tightest.

It also pays to start a row before shuffling if you can. After a shuffle, a row with nothing in place gets its gap in the first column, and it needs a 2 before anything else can happen there. A row that already has its 2 gets its gap in the second place, ready for the 3.

8. After a Shuffle, Look Before You Tap

Right after a shuffle all four gaps are in the best spots they will ever be in: each one sits exactly where a row's next card belongs. That is the richest moment of the game, so slow down. Check which of the four cards you need can move without leaving a gap behind a King, and take those first.

9. Use Undo to Explore, and Hint to Learn

In our game Undo is unlimited and even takes back a shuffle. Use it the way you would use a pencil and eraser on a crossword. Try a chain; if it dead-ends behind a King, undo back to the fork and try the other branch. Nothing is lost and you will start to recognize the patterns.

The Hint button looks a few moves ahead and suggests the move that leads to the most cards in place, and it tells you its reason. It never looks past a shuffle, because nobody can know how the cards will fall.

How Often Should You Win?

With the standard three shuffles, a patient player who follows the tips above will finish a good share of deals, though far from all of them. Do not be discouraged by a run of losses: some deals bury a suit behind Kings so deeply that three shuffles are not enough. If you would like a gentler game, switch to unlimited shuffles in Settings. If you want a real test, try no shuffles at all, where even getting twenty cards in place is a fine result. Both are described on the rule variations page.

For another solitaire where planning beats luck, try FreeCell.