Scorpion Solitaire

TSBy The Strategy Desk·Published April 5, 2026

Scorpion Solitaire is a strategic single-deck card game that combines the same-suit building of Spider Solitaire with the flexible card movement of Yukon. The result is a deeply tactical game where planning and sequencing matter more than luck.

How Scorpion Works

Deal 49 cards across 7 columns of 7. The first 4 columns have their top 3 cards face-down; the last 3 columns are dealt entirely face-up. Three cards are set aside as the reserve, which can be dealt (one to each of the first three columns) when you need fresh options.

Build down in the same suit on the tableau — a 9 of Hearts on a 10 of Hearts. The twist: you can pick up any face-up card and all cards below it, even if they don't form a sequence. When you build a complete King-to-Ace same-suit run at the bottom of a column, those 13 cards are removed. Complete all four suits to win.

Why It's Special

The ability to move non-sequential groups of cards makes Scorpion uniquely strategic. You can grab a face-up 7 that has a random assortment of cards piled on top of it and move the whole stack to an 8 of the same suit. This flexibility opens up creative solutions but also means you need to think carefully about which cards you're dragging along for the ride.

History & Origins

Scorpion belongs to the cascade family of solitaire games — relatives of Spider and Wasp — that rely on same-suit building inside the tableau rather than external foundation piles. It shares DNA with Spider, but uses a single deck of 52 cards and seven columns rather than ten. Its defining quirk is the reveal mechanic: four cards are dealt face-down at the top of the first four columns before the remaining cards are dealt face-up on top. A small three-card reserve waits at the side. Those hidden cards, combined with the “move any card plus everything below it” rule borrowed from Yukon, make Scorpion feel closer to a puzzle with fog-of-war than to a pure patience. Nineteenth-century British patience books describe close cousins; the name Scorpion appears to have stabilised in the mid-twentieth century.

Strategic Principles

The four face-down cards at the top of columns one through four are the single biggest threat in a Scorpion deal. We think of them as land mines: comfortable long descending runs can turn uninhabitable the moment a hidden card flips into something unplayable. The core rule we follow is never build an unbreakable sequence on top of a hidden card. If a 10-9-8-7-6 of Hearts sits on top of an unrevealed card, you have committed to that column without knowing what you are defending. Reveal first, build second.

Column depth is the second major axis. With seven cards per column at the deal, columns grow fast because the move-any-card rule lets entire stacks migrate. We track the two deepest columns like a cost meter — if they both exceed twelve cards, we halt forward building and redirect to excavation instead. Depth is how Scorpion deals get lost: a buried King or a buried mid-rank of the wrong suit can freeze the whole board.

The three-card reserve is a one-time emergency lever. It deals one card onto each of the first three columns — exactly the columns that started with hidden cards — and cannot be recalled. We hold the reserve until we have either (a) uncovered every face-down card, or (b) reached a position where no legal move exists. Spending the reserve early is the most common mistake we see in logged games. Like Spider Solitaire, patience with the stock is a top-quartile skill.

Difficulty & Win Rate

Scorpion sits at a 40 to 50% solve rate with skilled play — substantially harder than FreeCell, comparable to 2-suit Spider, and considerably easier than 4-suit Spider or Forty Thieves. The win rate reflects the tension between the game's generous movement (any card plus everything below it) and its punishing reveal mechanic. Good players generate many legal moves; the face-down cards decide whether those moves build toward resolution or bury the next bottleneck.

Our own logs show beginners winning around 20% of deals while experienced players hover in the mid-forties. The jump is almost entirely about reveal discipline. Once you stop building on hidden cards, the win rate climbs sharply. Unlike FreeCell family games, Scorpion has no theoretical 99% ceiling — even perfect play loses to deals where the hidden cards produce an unsolvable configuration.

Common Mistakes

• Building on top of face-down cards. Dragging a stack onto a hidden-card column creates a commitment before the reveal. If the reveal is hostile, the entire stack becomes dead weight.
• Burning the reserve too early. The three-card deal is one-time only. Players often trigger it to clear one annoying position and then lose the ability to recover from a real blocker ten moves later.
• Moving large stacks for cosmetic reasons. Because you can pick up any face-up card plus everything below it, players drag 8-card stacks to “tidy” the board. Every stack move buries or reshuffles cards; make sure each one has a concrete goal.
• Ignoring column depth. Two columns of 14 cards is a warning. Three columns of 14 is usually terminal. Shorten before you stack.
• Chasing completed suits prematurely. Locking in a 13-card same-suit run feels like progress, but the cards those moves buried can block a different suit indefinitely. Verify the cost before removing a suit.

How This Game Compares

Against Spider, Scorpion shares same-suit King-to-Ace building and automatic sequence removal, but differs on two critical rules: Scorpion uses one deck instead of two, and allows you to move any face-up card plus whatever sits on top of it, whereas Spider only allows pre-built same-suit groups. That movement freedom makes Scorpion significantly more flexible at the cost of easier self-inflicted damage. Against Yukon, the movement rule is identical but tableau building reverts to alternating colour and foundations appear. Against FreeCell and its family, Scorpion belongs to a different lineage — there are no cells, no external foundations, and hidden cards drive most of the difficulty.

Variant Notes

The classical Scorpion uses a three-card reserve that deals one card onto each of the first three columns. Some implementations (including our own in certain modes) allow the reserve to deal onto any three columns of the player's choice — a meaningful buff that pushes the solve rate up by roughly three to five points. Wasp, a well-known Scorpion variant, deals every card face-up (no hidden cards) and raises the win rate toward 60%. A “Three Blind Mice” variant flips the rules: six columns get the reserve treatment, creating a tighter opening. Our default layout matches the classical description with face-down cards at the top of columns one through four and a dedicated three-card reserve.

A handful of digital implementations offer an undo button and a hint system — we include both, but we recommend playing without hints once you have a baseline strategy in place. Scorpion rewards pattern recognition and the reveal-first discipline degrades quickly when a hint offers to spend your reserve for you. For players who enjoy the hidden-card tension, Yukon offers the same movement freedom with a different opening texture.

Frequently Asked Questions

Learn More

• How to Play Scorpion Solitaire — Complete rules and strategy guide
• Scorpion Strategy Guide — Tips and winning tactics
• Play Spider Solitaire — Same-suit building with two decks
• Play Yukon Solitaire — Flexible card movement with alternating colors
• Types of Solitaire — Explore 20+ solitaire variants