June 17: Solitaire

This evening, while awaiting the finale to my daughter's weekly dance class, my wife and I engaged in separate (obviously) games of solitaire. Our kids have recently shown an interest in card games; specifically Slapjack and War. We thought it might be a little more productive to teach our son the game of Solitaire. That way, when the other two card games lead to disagreement and arguing among him and his sister, which they eventually always do, we can send each child off with a packet of cards to engage in a game of solitaire independently. They learn, we enjoy the silence of two children not fighting. It's a win-win situation! It was during this "training" experience that I learned my wife and I approach the game of solitaire by a different set of rules. Well, just one really...my wife plays Kings as the base card upon which she builds her suits, while I play Aces as my base card from which I build everything else. Just a subtle difference, most likely from the way we were taught by our parents before us, but enough to make me do a little more research on the topic - mostly to find out if I'm right or she's wrong. My entire life I thought Solitaire was one, single game...I was wrong. In reality, there have to over 100 different solitaire games (I didn't count them, but you're more than welcome to if you like). Interestingly enough, Solitaire has also been around since the late 1700s, and it is often called "Patience" based on an old German/Scandinavian tradition which "assumes that a person’s 'luck' will vary from time to time and important matters should not be initiated or conducted when the cards are not favourable. If there are no winnings in the game for a number of tries it spells caution in what you do. If a win at the first try times are good and “luck” smiles at you, thus the immediate future can be used for important decisions". There's more about the history here for all of you history buffs. Unfortunately, for a game of luck, I sure didn't have any trying to find the details I originally set out to find. All of my research failed to identify whether my wife's method of play or mine is the "correct" way to play Solitaire. So, I'm left with no choice but to assume that my way is the right way. After all, my wife's usually right about everything else, and I've got to win one sometime, right?