As someone who keeps a deck of cards in her purse at all times, and is trying to spend less time on my phone, I’ve frequently found myself wanting a variant of solitaire that’s less… boring. I’ve mostly just played the various Klondike variants and the like, but they just don’t really do it for me.
This most recent New Year’s Eve, I found myself on a ferry to Bremerton for a Bridge City Sinners show, giving me an hour or so without cell coverage on the way there, and an hour or so without cell coverage on the way back. Armed with a deck of cards (and the Washington State Ferry system’s surprisingly improved food!), I decided to mess around and make a little solitaire game, which I’m calling Gyre solitaire.
What’s it like?
Gyre solitaire is a trick-taking game where you play cards from your hand to capture a rotating pool of cards in the center. In the base rules there are no unwinnable games, but that’s because I cheated on that and just made the game play for points.
Setup
The main play area of the game consists of six “slots” of cards, arranged in a circle in the middle. This area is known as the gyre. At any given time, five slots in the gyre will have cards in them, and one slot will be empty. To set up the game, place face-up cards in the five filled slots, then draw a hand of five cards. Put the deck face-down to the side, and prepare scoring and discard areas.
Turn order
On each turn, you must play a card from your hand on top of one in the gyre, as long as it’s the same suit and a higher rank, then move both cards to your score pile. Aces are exclusively low. If you are playing with Jokers, they are the highest card of any suit of their same color.
Once you’ve scored both cards, draw back up to five, then place the top card of the deck in either empty spot in the gyre. You may look at the card before deciding where to place it.
If you were unable to play a card this turn, you must instead do one of the following:
- Remove the card from the gyre next to the empty spot (going clockwise), then put the top card of the deck into the old empty spot face up.
- Or, if you have a card in your hand of the same suit and a lower rank as one in the center, you may replace that gyre card with the one from your hand. The gyre card is discarded.
Ending the game
Continue playing until the deck is empty, then play every card from your hand that you can, and discard all remaining cards in your hand and the gyre.
Scoring is 1 point for every Ace through 10, 2 points for a Jack, 3 for a Queen, 4 for a King, and 5 for a Joker.
Variants
Attrition
Be warned, this one is untested!
- As above, except shuffle one Joker into the middle third of the deck and another into the last third.
- Whenever the gyre rotates, you must also discard a card from your hand, and do not draw back up to five.
- When a Joker is revealed (whether through drawing or flipping), draw back up to five cards at the end of the turn.
- If you ever have to discard the last card in your hand while there are still cards in the deck, the game ends immediately and you subtract the number of cards remaining in the deck from your score.
Easier playing
- Aces are low or high for capturing, but still only give one point. They may capture Jokers.
- You can capture a card of a different suit if the ranks match.
Final thoughts
So yeah, lemme know what you think! I can be found on the Fediverse, Bluesky, and Tumblr.