How to play Simple Simon
The whole deck is dealt face up into ten piles - three piles of eight on the left, then seven, six, five, four, three, two and a single card. There is no stock and nothing is hidden. What you see at the start is the entire game.
- Build down by rank on any suit - a red six goes on a black seven quite happily.
- But you may only pick up a group when it is a single-suit run. Mixed piles move one card at a time.
- An empty pile takes any group.
- Assemble a full king down to ace in one suit and it leaves the table.
- Clear all four suits to win.
Click a card to pick it up along with everything below it, then click where it should go - or drag it. The status line counts how many legal moves you have left, so you will know the moment a position dies.
The one rule that decides every game
Dropping ignores suit; lifting does not. That asymmetry is the entire puzzle. It means you can always find somewhere to put a card, and it means every mixed-suit stack you build is a debt you will repay one card at a time. Good players are stingy: they cross suits only when it buys something concrete, and they keep at least one pile free to unpick the mess when it does not.
Strategy
- Attack the three eights first. The left-hand piles hold the deepest cards and only get worse as you pile more on top. The short piles on the right are easy and will still be easy later.
- Treat an empty pile as a workshop, not a bin. Its value is that it lets you take a mixed pile apart. Fill it with a king and you have traded your only tool for one card of progress.
- Build suits low-to-high where you can. A run growing from the ace upwards can be completed by whichever copy of the next rank surfaces first; scattered fragments in the same suit have to be reunited later, always one card at a time.
- Watch the move counter. When the number of available moves starts falling fast you are usually one careless stack away from a dead board. That is the moment to undo and look again.
Frequently asked questions
How do you play Simple Simon solitaire?
All 52 cards are dealt face up into ten piles - eight, eight, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one. Build down by rank on any suit, but you may only pick up a group of cards when they form a descending run of a single suit. When a full king-to-ace run of one suit collects at the end of a pile it is removed from the table. Clear all four suits to win.
How is it different from Spider Solitaire?
Two differences, and both make it easier. Nothing is face down, so you can read the entire position from the first move, and there is no stock - what you are dealt is all you get, so the game never dumps a fresh row on top of your careful work. It is the friendliest game in the Spider family and a good way to learn the pattern before tackling Spider itself.
Why can I move a card onto any suit but only lift a single suit?
That asymmetry is the whole game. Dropping is loose, so you always have somewhere to put things; lifting is strict, so anything you stack across suits is work you will have to undo card by card later. Every mixed-suit pile you build is a debt.
What percentage of Simple Simon games can be won?
A bit under half of deals go out with good play, which puts it far ahead of Spider at four suits and well behind Klondike-style games. Since nothing is hidden, a loss is a real loss rather than a bad shuffle.
What is the best strategy?
Work on the three big eight-card piles on the left first - they hold the deepest buried cards and they only get harder to unpick. Empty a pile when you can and treat it as a workshop rather than a dumping ground. And avoid stacking a card onto a different suit unless it buys you something concrete, because you will have to move it again one card at a time.
Does the game tell me when I am stuck?
Yes. The status line shows how many legal moves remain, and when it reaches zero you get a dialog rather than being left to work it out. Undo is unlimited, so a dead end costs you nothing but the exploration.
More solitaire games
Ready for the real thing? Spider Solitaire adds hidden cards and a stock. Scorpion is another one-deck suit-building game, and Beleaguered Castle shares the nothing-is-hidden appeal.