How to Play Clock Solitaire

If you are a fan of solitaire and looking to spice things up, you might want to try clock solitaire. This variation is set up to look like a clock face, which is where the name comes from.

Clock solitaire is entirely driven but luck. So while winning is rare, the game is still loads of fun. Here's how to play clock solitaire, plus some even more challenging variations.

How to Play Clock Solitaire

• Players: Requires only one player
• Deck: Standard 52-card deck
• Goal: Complete all other four-of-a-kind sets before the fourth king is revealed.

Setup

Shuffle the deck and deal the cards, face down, into 13 piles of four cards each arranged as if they are the numbers on a clock, with the extra pile in the middle of the circle. The "numbers" of each pile (one through 12 on the clock and the middle pile as number 13) are important.

Gameplay

Turn the top card on the 13th pile face up (the pile in the middle of the circle). Place the card, still face up, under the pile of that card's number. For example, a four would go under the four pile. An ace would go under the one pile. Face cards are placed as follows: jack under 11, queen under 12, king under 13.

Then, turn the top card on that pile face up and place it, still face up, under the appropriate pile. Continue in this manner until the game ends.

If the final face-down card in a pile belongs to that same pile, continue the game by turning the next (moving clockwise) face-down card face up.

How to Win

You win if all 13 piles become face-up piles of four-of-a-kind. However, you lose if the fourth king is turned face-up before completing all the other sets. Clock solitaire is only won about 1% of the time because it is entirely based on chance.

Variations on Clock Solitaire

If regular clock solitaire is not challenging enough for you, there are some variations that you might like. In some versions of the game, the goal is not just to stack each card in four-of-a-kind piles but to alternate the card color as you do. This would mean you could only place a red ace on top of a black ace, and so on. As you can imagine, this variation makes the game even more challenging. If you follow this rule, you might want to introduce a waste pile for when you can not place a card yet. Usually, players are allowed to reuse the waste pile a maximum of two times before the game ends. Although, most games end before using the waste pile.