Solitaire games

Solitaire is a term applied to any game which can be played by one person alone. In the United States, the term "solitaire", like the term "patience" in England, denotes principally games played with a standard pack of fifty-two playing cards.
The origin of solitaire games is obscure; the most probable conjecture is that such games are derivatives of a group of sequence-building card games, known as stop, which have a history of several hundreds of years.
Solitaires are divided into two principal types, one in which the chance order of cards as shuffled by a player determines the outcome and another in which a player is permitted to use skill or judgment in rearranging cards so as to influence the final result.
Most solitaires are based on the problem of forming sequences in ascending or descending order, i.e., from the ace up to the king or from the king down to the ace, often in endless rotation. Suits have no comparative rank in these games, hearts and diamonds being called "red" and spades and clubs "black". The rules may require that sequences be built up in one color, in alternating colors, or in one suit alone; occasionally one or more of these methods is permitted in different parts of the game.
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