Poker Squares

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Poker hands
3. Setup
4. Playing
5. Scoring
6. Winning the game
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants

Overview

Poker Squares is a patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire) with a difference: it cannot "come out" – instead you play for a score. You turn up 25 cards one at a time and place each one in a grid of five rows and five columns. Every row and every column then counts as a five-card poker hand, and the better the hands, the more points you get. Once a card is placed, it stays where it is.

• Players: 1 (or several, each with their own deck – see Variants)
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, no jokers, a table with room for a 5 × 5 grid, and pencil and paper (or the score pad).

Poker hands

A poker hand is a group of five cards. The combinations below are what you are trying to make in each row and column, from best to worst. The Ace can count high (10-J-Q-K-A) or low (A-2-3-4-5) in a straight, but a straight cannot go "round the corner" (Q-K-A-2-3 is not a straight).

A hand that is none of these scores nothing. Each row or column scores only its best combination – a full house is not also counted as three of a kind and a pair.

Setup

Shuffle the deck and place it face down in front of you as the stock (the pile you turn cards from). Leave a space for a square of 5 × 5 cards. You will only use 25 of the 52 cards; the rest stay in the stock.

Playing

1. Turn up the top card of the stock.
2. Put it face up in any empty space of the grid. You can start anywhere, and you may leave gaps to fill later – but the finished grid must be exactly five rows of five cards.
3. Once a card is placed, you may never move it again.
4. Repeat until all 25 spaces are filled.

The skill lies in deciding where each card goes without knowing what comes next: keep a column for a flush, collect ranks in a row, and leave space for the pairs that are sure to turn up.

Scoring

When the grid is full, score each of the five rows and five columns – ten hands in all – and add them up. Two scoring systems are common: the American system follows how rare the hands are in real poker, the English system how hard they are to make in this game (a straight is harder to build here than a flush). Agree on one before you start.

A card counts in one row and one column at the same time, so a good card can help two hands.

Example: Your top row is 7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ K♠ – a full house: 25 points (American) or 10 (English). The first column reads 7♠ 6♠ 5♠ 3♠ 2♠ – a flush: 20 or 5. The second column, 7♥ 8♣ 9♦ 10♥ J♠, is a straight: 15 or 12. The other seven hands are added in the same way.

Winning the game

Poker Squares is played for the highest possible score. By tradition you count it as a win if you reach 200 points with American scoring or 70 points with English scoring. Keep a list of your totals and try to beat your best.

Tips for beginners

• Pairs and three of a kind come up by themselves; plan the rarer hands.
• Set aside one or two columns for flushes: put cards of one suit there and use the rows for pairs and full houses.
• With English scoring, straights are worth a lot – but only go for one if the ranks are close together.
• Don't fill one row completely too early: leftover spaces are your "rubbish bin" for cards that fit nowhere.

Variants

All optional – agree before you play.

• Several players: everyone has their own deck. One player shuffles and calls out each card as it is turned; the others find the same card in their deck and place it in their own grid. Highest total wins. This is how the game was described in 1909.
• Placing next to a card: in the oldest rules, every card after the first must go next to a card already on the table – above, below, beside or diagonally.
• Poker Shuffle: all 25 cards are dealt face up first, then you arrange them as you like. A win needs 310 points (American) or 120 (English).