Scorpion Solitaire Tips: Same-Suit Building, the 3-Card Reserve and Collecting K-to-A Runs (2026)

Q: What is the deal number under the title?

It identifies the shuffle. Add ?deal=12345 to the page URL to play that exact deal again, and share the number to compare the same board. Without it every load deals a fresh random board.

Last updated: October 10, 2026 · Tested on Playnesta's Scorpion build (self-hosted muzsor/solitaire-collection engine @ 13ce580c, MIT, plus a Playnesta-original rules module) · Deck: one deck, 52 cards · Columns: 7 of 7, all face up · Reserve: 3 cards, dealt once · Completed runs: 4 slots, K to A

Method: every number below comes from this site's playable build and was measured, not quoted. The headless run passed 54/54 checks: a clean start with zero console errors, zero external requests and zero 4xx responses; the deal (52 cards from one deck, seven columns of seven all face up, a 3-card face-down reserve, four empty completed slots); same-suit placement accepted while other-suit and wrong-rank placements are rejected; only a King entering an empty column; any face-up card liftable with everything above it — including a deliberately unsuited block; completed slots refusing manual placements; the reserve dealing exactly one card onto each of the first three columns, a second deal doing nothing, and undo taking the reserve cards back; a finished K-to-A run collected through a real drop while a 12-card run and a mixed-suit 13 stay put; the win firing on the fourth run with the banner and the 4/4, 52/52 HUD; real mouse play, undo, hint, restart and the No-moves bar; a full reserve counting as a live move with hint pointing at it; and both production stages (348x261 and 894x670) with no overflow, all 49 dealt cards inside the phone stage, and a real touch tap moving a card exactly once. Difficulty was then measured by playing 3,000 deals with a deliberately weak greedy baseline (numbers in section 6).

1. The deal you actually get

One full deck is shuffled — 52 cards — and 49 of them are dealt face up into seven columns of seven. Nothing is hidden: unlike Klondike, Spider or Yukon there is not a single face-down card on the tableau, so the whole position is visible from the first second. The last 3 cards wait face down in the reserve (top-left). That is the entire game: seven sevens plus three in hand.

Because everything is visible, the opening is a reading exercise, not a gamble. Count your Kings first (only they can open empty columns), then look for the longest same-suit chains already on the board — a 9-8-7 of spades sitting in one column is a nearly finished middle waiting for its ends. The average opening offers about 5 legal moves and no measured deal offered zero, so you always have a first move; the skill is picking the one that builds toward a run instead of the one that merely moves.

2. Lift any face-up block — the rule that decides everything

Columns build down by rank in the same suit: a spade 7 goes on a spade 8 and will not go on a heart 8, and a spade 6 will not go on a spade 8 either — suit and rank both have to be right, and the board enforces both. But any face-up card may be lifted together with everything on top of it, even when the lifted block is not in sequence. A heart 5 buried under two random cards still moves as one lift the moment a heart 6 is free — the board only checks the bottom card of the moving block.

Practically: read the bottom card, ignore the mess above it. This is the rule that separates Scorpion from Spider, where only suited runs travel. It also means a tall column is never a prison: the card you want is liftable wherever it sits, and the price is only finding a legal home for the block's bottom card.

The reverse also holds: placing a block buries everything above its bottom card inside the destination column, which can hide a nearly finished run under junk. Prefer moving short blocks and single cards when the bottom card fits either way — the measurement in section 6 comes from exactly that habit.

3. Same suit, and Kings own the empty columns

Same-suit building is stricter than it looks. With four suits in play, any given card has only three possible homes (the three columns topped by the next rank of its suit — fewer once columns consolidate), where a Klondike card has twice that. So the board clogs fast, and the release valve is the empty column: only a King (with whatever sits on it) may enter an empty column.

The habit worth building: before you clear a column, know which King takes it. An empty column with no King ready is not freedom — it is a column that accepts exactly one card in the whole deck, and every move you make while it sits empty is a move that cannot use it. Keep one King mobile instead of burying all four early.

4. The reserve: 3 cards, one shot, no redeal

Tapping the reserve deals its 3 cards face up, one onto each of the first three columns — and that is the whole reserve, forever. There is no redeal, no second wave, no waste pile to mine. Undo takes the three cards back, so trying the deal is always safe, but the decision of when is the closest thing this game has to a strategic commitment.

Deal it when no column move helps: each reserve card lands on a fixed column whether it fits your plans or not, and a badly timed deal buries a column you were about to clear. The measured baseline deals the reserve in 100% of its games — it only moves when nothing else moves — and still collects about 26 of 52 cards on average. A human rule of thumb: if two or more column moves remain, play them first; the reserve is for the position with zero or one.

5. Finished runs collect themselves — there are no foundations

Unlike Klondike, Yukon or Forty Thieves, this game has no Ace-to-King foundations. When a column's top 13 cards read King down to Ace in one suit — King at the bottom, Ace on top, nothing above the Ace — the whole run is collected automatically into the first empty completed slot (K→A counter, top row). A 12-card run stays. A 13-card run with one wrong suit stays. Only the exact run leaves.

Win by collecting all four runs (52/52). Because collection is automatic, you never have to protect a finished run or decide when to cash it — the moment the Ace lands, the run is gone and the column underneath breathes again. Plan backwards from that: a run completes when its Ace has somewhere to land, so an Ace buried under junk is the most expensive card on the board and freeing it is usually the best move available.

6. How hard is it, really?

Scorpion has a fearsome reputation, and the measurement corrects it — in the friendly direction. Playing 3,000 random deals with a deliberately weak greedy baseline — extend the longest suited tail, move anything legal, deal the reserve only when stuck, never plan — the baseline won 1,056 of the 3,000 (35.2%), collected 25.6 of 52 cards on average (median 26; the middle 80% landed between 0 and 52), finished about 2 of the 4 runs per deal, in 45.9 moves, and got genuinely stuck (no legal move at all) in 64.8% of deals.

Read those numbers the right way. They describe a baseline that never plans — no reserve timing, no King guarding, no Ace freeing — yet it still wins a third of its deals, because everything is visible and every card stays reachable. That makes Scorpion the most approachable solitaire on this site for a beginner: the opening always has a move (about 5 on average, never zero measured), the rules fit in one panel, and a third of casual deals go all the way. The other side of the same numbers: when the baseline loses, it loses stuck, not close — two thirds of its losses end with no legal move anywhere. So the skill is not grinding harder; it is keeping one line open (a mobile King, an unburied Ace) so the position never funnels to zero.

Termination honesty: the baseline stops on genuinely stuck positions, on the first repeated position (a loop guard), or at a 500-step cap — and across all 3,000 deals neither guard fired once: every deal ended decisively, won or stuck. No capped or loop-stopped deal is hiding inside the averages.

FAQ

How do you play Scorpion Solitaire?

Seven columns of seven face-up cards are dealt from one deck with 3 cards in reserve. Build columns down in the same suit, lift any face-up block even out of sequence, put only Kings on empty columns, and deal the reserve once onto the first three columns. Win by collecting all four K-to-A same-suit runs.

Can I really move a block that is not in sequence?

Yes. Any face-up card lifts with everything on top of it, and the board checks only the bottom card of the moving block. An unsuited pile still travels wherever its bottom card is legal — that single rule is the biggest difference from Spider.

Why can't my queen go on the empty column?

Only a King may enter an empty column, with whatever sits on it. A queen can never open a new column no matter how well placed it is elsewhere — keep a King mobile instead of burying all four early.

When should I deal the reserve?

When no column move helps. The 3 cards land on the first three columns whether they fit your plans or not, and there is no redeal — so play your remaining column moves first, then deal. Undo takes the three cards back, so trying it is always safe.

What is the deal number under the title?

It identifies the shuffle. Add ?deal=12345 to the page URL to play that exact deal again, and share the number to compare the same board. Without it every load deals a fresh random board.

Is a deal ever unwinnable?

Yes, often. In 3,000 measured deals a plan-free baseline got genuinely stuck in about two thirds of its losses — no legal move anywhere, reserve gone. Keep one line open (a mobile King, an unburied Ace) and most deals stay contestable.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. The board is fitted to the measured stage so all seven columns, the reserve and the four run slots sit inside the phone frame with no scrolling, and a real tap runs the same code path as a mouse click. All 49 dealt cards were verified inside the 348x261 production stage.

Where can I play it?

Right on this site's scorpion solitaire page. The engine, renderer, card model, RNG, sound and stylesheet are the MIT-licensed solitaire-collection by muzsor (commit 13ce580c) shipped byte-identical; that pin has no Scorpion, so the rules module is Playnesta-original and follows the same contract as the upstream klondike module. Cards are DOM elements and sounds are WebAudio synthesis, so no bitmap, audio or font asset ships and nothing is fetched at runtime.