Play Scotch Solitaire Online for Free (No Signup Required)
Eighteen little fans, every card face-up before you touch a thing, foundations climbing Ace to King in alternating colors. One slip empties a fan for good, so plan ahead.
Scotch Solitaire is an open member of the Fan family of solitaire games. The entire deck is spread face-up across eighteen little fans — seventeen fans of three cards each and a final fan holding just a single card — so every card is in plain sight before you make your first move.
What gives Scotch its own flavor is the foundations: instead of climbing in suit, they build up from Ace to King in alternating colors, so a red 2 goes on a black Ace, a black 3 on the red 2, and so on. The fans themselves are far more forgiving and build down regardless of suit, but there are two catches — only one card may be moved at a time, and once a fan is emptied it stays empty for the rest of the game.
With no stock, no waste, and nothing dealt face-down, luck plays almost no part once the deal is on the table. The game is played with a single deck, and your odds of victory are determined almost entirely by skill — most losses can be traced back to a card you buried yourself, so it pays to plan several moves ahead before touching anything.
Fan Solitaire and Shamrocks Solitaire are Scotch's closest relatives, both built from the same all-face-up, no-stock fan layout.
If you run into anything odd or have an idea that would make the game better, please contact me.
Enjoy playing!
How to play Scotch Solitaire
Layout:
4 foundation piles: Build up in alternating colors from Ace to King.
18 fans: Build down regardless of suit. Seventeen fans of three cards and one fan of a single card, all dealt face-up. Only the top card of each fan may be moved, and empty fans may not be refilled.
Foundation:
There are four foundation piles.
Each pile starts with an Ace and is built up to the King in alternating colors. A card can be added to a foundation pile only if it's one rank higher and the opposite color of the pile's current top card, so the only cards that fit on an 8 of spades are the 9 of hearts and the 9 of diamonds. There can be no more than 13 cards in a pile.
The top card of each foundation can be moved back into play if another pile will accept it.
Tableau:
The whole deck is dealt face-up into eighteen fans: seventeen of three cards each and one of a single card.
A card can be added to a fan only if it's one rank lower than the fan's top card, regardless of suit, so the cards that fit on an 8 of spades are any 7.
Cards that are not covered by another card are free to be played onto the foundation or any other fan.
Empty fans may not be refilled, so think twice before playing away the last card of a fan.
Only one card may be moved at a time; sequences are not permitted.
