Chapter XIV: Solitaire

BY THE LATE CAPTAIN CRAWLEY.

As a game for one player there is no superior to Solitaire. Apparently easy and simple, it is really intricate and scientific. Governed by a well-defined principle, chance forms no element of its practice. Like Chess and Draughts, it is entirely a mental and demonstrable game, full of variety, and affording ample scope, in its almost endless combinations, for the display of thought and ingenuity.

Solitaire is played on a board of thirty-three holes, in each of which a marble or glass ball is placed. Solitaire boards are made, but the game may be just as efficiently played on a properly marked piece of card-board, with draughtsmen or counters instead of marbles. This plan, indeed, is preferable to and cheaper than any other.

The method of play is as follows:--One marble is removed from its place, and then another is passed into the vacant hole. Take up the marble over which you jump, and continue to take piece after piece, _always going in straight lines and never in diagonals_, till you bring back the last marble from the hole whence the first was taken. One marble only can be taken at one jump; but, as in Draughts, you may proceed to play, and take, with the same marble, so long as there is a piece _en prise_ with a vacant hole in the line behind it. The repetition of the figures will show the continued move of the piece.

There are other modes of playing Solitaire--as by indicating a special hole, distinct from the starting-place, in which to lodge the last marble, leaving two, three, or four marbles in a particular position, ending in the hole next the original one, and so on; but the above, the more usual plan, should be first learned. We will now give a diagram, and show you how to start from and return to the centre hole. Remove the centre marble. Jump from 1 in the upper limb to 1, the middle hole, taking 16-18. Go from 2 on the right limb of the diagram to 2 above the centre, taking 3-5. Proceed from hole to hole as indicated by the figures, and you will find that the last move will land the marble in the centre. Practise this till you can play the Centre-hole Game without the use of the diagram. It looks easy enough; but just try it before you condemn Solitaire as mere child’s play.

GAME II.

Presuming you have familiarised yourselves with the principle of the game, I present another diagram:--

Remove the marble from the upper right-hand corner hole and proceed as before, going from place to place, as shown by the figures on the diagram. Get this by heart, and play the game without the problem.

GAME III.

In this, one of the best positions, remove the left-hand upper marble, and play the game according to the plan in the diagram below. You will find this an easy game to remember.

This may be altered by ending in any other hole. You should, however, thoroughly conquer the game as presented before you attempt any variation. It is not sufficient to play with the diagram before you. The problem is presented as a game to be learned, and once thoroughly learned, it is difficult to forget it.

GAME IV.

The following is a pretty but somewhat difficult position. It will be sufficient to give the diagram without remark other than this: Conquer it before you leave off, and do not be disheartened if you fail to succeed the first time you attempt it without the diagram.

GAME V.

You will understand that these positions given may be varied by starting from a similar place in either leg of the board. It is sufficient to mention this. To give players many variations would occupy too much space.

GAME VI.

Here we have one of the most difficult and yet most interesting of positions. Proceed as before, taking care to learn the game so as to play without the numbered diagram. Remove the black marble.

Solitaire may also be played by two persons, the object of one of them being to defeat the other by contrary or opposite moves. Double Solitaire is, however, somewhat deficient in the one great element of all antagonistic games--variety.