Accordion

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Matching cards
3. Setup
4. Playing
5. Winning
6. Tips for beginners
7. Variants

Overview

Accordion is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) that needs no knowledge of card games at all – only sharp eyes. You lay the cards out in a long line and jump them onto matching cards to their left, so the line keeps growing and shrinking like the bellows of an accordion. You win if the whole deck ends up in one single pile. That is very hard: only about one game in a hundred comes out.

• Players: 1
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, and a table with room for a long row of cards.

Matching cards

Two cards match if they have the same suit (both ♥, for example) or the same rank (both 7s, for example). 5♠ matches 9♠ and 5♥, but not 9♥.

Setup

Shuffle and hold the deck face down: this is the stock. Deal the cards one at a time, face up, in a row from left to right. If you run out of room, go on in a new row below – the rows count as one long line, read like a book.

Playing

Every card or pile in the line is a place; only the top card of a pile counts.

1. Moving: a card may be put onto the card directly to its left, or onto the card three places to its left (skipping two), if the two cards match.
2. Piles: a pile moves as a whole onto its left neighbour or the pile three to the left. Whether it may move depends only on its top card.
3. Closing gaps: when a card or pile moves away, push everything to its right one place to the left, so the line has no gaps. Now new neighbours may match – check again.
4. Dealing: deal the next card from the stock to the end of the line whenever you like. You don't have to make a move just because you can – it is often wise to deal a few more cards first to see which choice is best.

Example: The line shows 5♠ 6♠ 10♦ 5♥ K♣. The 6♠ may go onto the 5♠ (its neighbour, same suit), or the 5♥ onto the 5♠ (three places left, same rank). The 10♦ and K♣ cannot move. If you move the 5♥, the line becomes 5♥ 6♠ 10♦ K♣ – and the 6♠ can no longer go onto the 5♥.

Winning

When the stock is empty and you can make no more moves, the game is over. You win if all 52 cards are in one pile. Otherwise, the fewer piles you have left, the better.

Tips for beginners

• Before every move, look at what it does to the neighbours: moving a card changes which cards are next to each other.
• Try to keep cards of one rank that lie near each other together; the four cards of one rank can later sweep up piles of all four suits.
• Moves to the third place on the left shorten the line faster – but check that you are not breaking up a useful pair.
• Don't play automatically: often the card you are about to deal would give you a better choice.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Five piles win: Alfred Sheinwold suggested counting it as a win if five piles or fewer are left – much more achievable.
• Strict rules (The Idle Year): as in the oldest printed rules, a card must be moved as soon as it can, and if it could go to either place, it must go onto its direct neighbour.
• Whole deck at once: deal out all 52 cards first, then start making moves.