Butterfly (solitaire)
The butterfly is a difficult solitaire game played with a hand of 52 cards.
Rules of the game and variants
Like most solitaire games, the "butterfly" is a card game for one person. The playing cards are a simple rummy sheet of 52 cards.
The four aces are placed one below the other in any order at the beginning. They form the symbolized body of the butterfly.
The remaining 48 cards are placed in five rows to the right and left of the aces as shown in the illustration, initially 2 rows of 5 cards each, and a middle row of 4 cards each and then another 2 rows of 5 cards each. The five rows form the butterfly's wings.
The task of the game is to build on the aces color-fast, i.e. in the
colors ( clubs 
, spades 
, hearts 
or diamonds 
) increasing. The last card is always the king. If all the kings are in the correct color, the game is up.
The skill of the game is made possible and clear by the fact that cards can be placed on the outer edges of the wings, in ascending or descending order. These cards are taken from other rows on the outside. The colors do not play a role in this conversion. A somewhat more difficult variant requires that a black card (clubs or spades) is always placed on a red card (hearts or diamonds) in ascending or descending order and, conversely, a red card is placed on a black card. With this rebuilding you want to get the right cards that fit on the ace families. A row may only be completely removed if the last / innermost card fits on an ace family. To completely dismantle a row early on can be tactically unwise, because you lose a row to rebuild. It also quickly becomes clear that the more low cards (twos or threes) are in a row, the harder the game is, in the extreme case next to the aces. In such cases, most of the work has to be done.
The further the game has progressed, the more and longer "flutes" can arise on the outer edges, i.e. ascending and descending card sequences. If necessary, these can be rebuilt in the reverse order.
If nothing works, the "basement" helps. This means that a maximum of 3 cards that cannot be grown anywhere can be placed as auxiliary cards from the outer edges in the "basement", preferably below the butterfly. Cellar cards may not be returned to the outer edges, but only placed directly on the ace families. It goes without saying that it is risky to put high cards (say 10s to Kings) in the basement when it is foreseeable that it will take a long time to be able to use them again. So it is better to operate in the basement, if at all, with cards that are only two or three values higher than the value that is currently on an ace family. As an example, you can put the 8 of clubs in the basement when the 6 of clubs is on the ace of clubs family. Any free space gained in this way in the basement can be filled up with another aid card if necessary.
The "butterfly" is similar to another game of patience, the little Napoleon.
literature
- Vojtech Omasta: Solitaire. New and old game combinations, puzzle and placement games from Vojtech Omasta with illustrations and step-by-step instructions. Werner Dausien Verlag Hanau. 1997. ISBN 978-3-7684-0472-3
supporting documents
- ↑ Karin Höfer. Patience for beginners and advanced. New examples and variants, tasks and solutions. 2nd act. Edition 2015. Humboldt Verlag. ISBN 978-386910-179-8
- ↑ Little Napoleon