How to Play Addiction Solitaire

Addiction Solitaire is a whole new spin on your usual Solitaire. Its layout and game mechanics will challenge your strategy and skills. If you think you’re up for the challenge, learn how to play Addiction Solitaire with our step-by-step guide.

Addiction Solitaire requires a single deck of cards without the jokers.

Deal all cards into four rows of 13 cards each. These are meant to house all four suits, beginning with the two of each suit.

All cards are dealt face-up in a random fashion, and the four aces are removed to create blank spaces. There are no waste or stock piles in this variant.

Your goal is to reorganize all the cards by suit and in ascending order. The game can end in three ways:

• You successfully rearrange the cards into four rows according to suit and in ascending numerical order from 2 to the King.
• You run out of moves and can no longer reshuffle.
• You fail to reorder all cards before the time is up. However, this outcome only applies to timed games.

The game's mechanics are easy to learn but difficult to master. Thinking strategically, utilize the four blank spaces to move cards around the layout.

Moving cards around the layout can be tricky. When you want to move a card, ensure that the card to the left of the target blank space has certain qualities in relation to the card you intend to move:

• The card to the left of the blank space must be the same suit as the card you’re moving.
• The card to the left of the blank space must be of adjacent numerical value as the card you’re moving.

This means that you can move a 9 of hearts to a blank space whose left-side neighbor is a 10 of hearts. However, you could not move the 3 of spades next to a Jack of clubs.

Cards can only be moved one at a time. For the online game version, moveable cards are automatically highlighted without pressing the ‘hint’ button for the sake of time.

A two of any suit can be placed at the beginning of any row. Once placed, it determines the suit of cards to follow after it. Therefore, choosing what suit to play for each row is a key moment in the game.

The online version of the game allows you to reshuffle the cards three times. Pressing ‘reshuffle’ causes the game to deal the cards again randomly, except for cards that are already placed correctly. These cards are determined by the 2 at the beginning of the row.

Now that you have learned the basics, let’s check out some techniques to help you beat the clock and win the game:

• Analyze the rows. Look carefully at which rows of cards can be quickly ordered into a complete suit. More often than not, you will rely on automatic hints. However, you will still decide which cards to play at the beginning of each row as these are not predetermined like the rest of the moves.
• Move quickly. Remember, you’re playing against the clock. Try to follow the hints and move cards quickly into place.
• Strategize. If you followed the first two tips above, you’ll (hopefully) have a long-term strategy in mind as well as time to execute it. The next thing to do is to strategize, especially when there are multiple moves available. Choose the best moves that free up spots for building suits.
• Get Kings out of the way. Prioritize placing Kings at the end of the rows since they block the spaces next to them. No card can be placed to the right of a King since the suits are built in ascending order.
• Enjoy the game. It’s called Addiction Solitaire for a reason—it will take multiple attempts before you successfully order the cards in four rows of suits in under 10 minutes. But once you do, the reward of winning this challenging game is sweet. The key is to enjoy the game and not place too much emphasis on winning on your first few tries.

This variant is clearly not for beginners, with its challenging gameplay, restrictive moves, and game timer. However, the goal of Solitaire is to engage players - whether experts or beginners - in the task of creating order out of chaos. Learning how to play Addiction Solitaire means challenging yourself and putting your Solitaire skills to the test.

Learning how to play Addiction Solitaire may be easy, but it will take all your skill and strategy to win. See how fast you can beat the odds and play Addiction Solitaire today. All of Arkadium’s games are browser-based - no download required. Play your favorite games anytime, anywhere, with Arkadium.

Did you know that we have over 120 free online games on Arkadium? Browse our wide collection of Solitaire games, including Klondike, Spider Solitaire, Pyramid Solitaire, Tripeaks Solitaire, Canfield, Crescent, Forty Thieves, Freecell, and more.