Solitaire is one of the most popular PC card games in the world. Even though the game dates back to the late 1700s, it earned its massive popularity when its digital edition was included as part of Microsoft Windows in the 90s. Since then, many new variations of solitaire were invented. According to some sources, there are over 500 variations of solitaire. It’s even better than the many varieties that most of them are free to play. However, if you don’t want to get lost in the many variations, here are the top five most popular solitaire free games.
#1 Klondike
Klondike is also known as Patience in the United Kingdom and is regarded as one of the most popular Solitaire versions. This version first became popularized by gold searchers in Klondike, Canada. From there, it spread all over North American and the world. Since then, several versions of Klondike appeared, and there is even a Tarot version.
#2 Spider Solitaire
This version became particularly popular when it was introduced with Windows in 1995. People love it because it is easy to adjust your difficulty level by opting for the number of decks you want to play with. The more decks you use, the more difficult your gameplay will be, and more time will be needed to complete it.
#3 Pyramid Solitaire
In Pyramid Solitaire, the player needs to pair the cards to get thirteen. Once the player makes a pair, the cards can be taken away. That opens the door to making new pairs using the remaining cards. To win in Pyramid Solitaire, you need to clear all cards from both the stock and the table. However, certain variations allow winning by taking care of the cards found on the playing area. This version became an instant hit from the moment it was introduced on windows-powered PCs.
#4 Tripeaks
Tripeaks is similar to Black Hole and Golf Solitaire. This variation got its name from the card layout made of three triangles of face-down and overlapped cards. Plus, there is a single row of cards placed at the bottom. Robert Hogue invented this version in 1989. He even did a series of statistical analyses to prove that this version is solvable 90% of the time.
#5 Freecell
Freecell Solitaire is unique in many ways, and that’s one of the reasons why so many people love to play it. For example, Freecell solitaire includes open cells for reserving cards, and all the cards are dealt face-up. Plus, pretty much all Freecell games are solvable. The chances of hitting an unsolvable combination are eight out of a million. That’s only 0.0008%. For comparison, the percentage of unsolvable games with other solitaire variants is between ten and thirty percent. Therefore, if you can’t solve your Freecell game, then the odds are that you got something wrong, not that the generated game can be blamed. Freecell Solitaire got popularized by Windows as it was also part of its free games package.
