Lessons From Solitaire

I admit it, I play Solitaire on my computer. It is one of those things that rests my brain, and brings order when I am in the middle of chaos, or when I’ve had a day that really took it out of me.

There are lessons in Solitaire, and some are fairly profound.

1. Some people judge you if you play Solitaire. Life is full of people who judge you as inferior if you engage in certain activities. But there is no dishonor in Solitaire. It can be a great time waster if you lose yourself in laziness, but it can also be used in positive ways.
2. There’s more than one game. Hoyle has more than 50, and it is generally accepted that there are around 150 games, plus variations on those, bringing the total with variants to over 500. Life should never lock us into just one game.
3. Never play an unwinnable Hand. Experience teaches us that many games as laid out are unwinnable. We can recognize these with a fair degree of accuracy, and filter them out. No point wasting time playing the game we know we will lose.
4. Choosing not to play the layout means you forfeit. It counts as a loss. Most people filter that out in their calculation of how winnable a game is, so their perspective on the game is skewed.
5. Don’t get too attached to the draw. When we invest the time in playing the game, sometimes we want to really make sure it is not winnable. With a computer game, we can undo, and then replay certain parts. Sometimes this leads to a win. But there is a point where we have to abandon an unproductive game, and go on to something worthwhile, because a game we cannot win, or even one we spend too much time winning, is no longer worthwhile. Maybe you COULD win after all. But at what cost?
6. Most people cheat. When you ask someone who plays Solitaire with actual cards, how much they win, they report higher win rates than they experience on a computer game. It is so simple to shift a card, shuffle a deck, or reverse a draw pattern, giving us a chance to win simply by breaking the rules in some little way that we excuse for ourselves. We always discount this, and count the win anyway. We cheat more than we acknowledge. My own person observation and analysis shows this is fairly universal.
7. Cheating skews your perspective regarding the odds of winning. This means you will recommend a game as winnable that YOU, PERSONALLY have to cheat, to win at the rate you credit yourself with. It does not make you GOOD at it, it just makes you INACCURATE at teaching about it.
8. Playing a hand with physical cards is DIFFERENT than computer Solitaire. You can cheat more easily with cards. The computer generally stops that, but you are limited by the programmer’s interpretation of the rules (and some are implemented incorrectly), and you are given additional tools to aid in playing more easily.
9. It is HARD to play a new game when you don’t have a copy of the rules. Ponder that.
10. The best games are the ones that are less popular. The games we love most are not Klondike or Freecell.
11. We enjoy Solitaire more when we have a variety of games. We rarely love it when we lock ourselves into a single game.
12. The game that is easy to win is not always the best game. Those games that require more skill to win are the most fun for me. Those that are easy to win are what I go to when my brain is overloaded, and I just need to be able to do something right.
13. The “Best” game is the game YOU think is best. It is never the one someone else likes best.
14. Winning is never just chance, and never just skill. It is always BOTH. Even with an “easy” game.
15. If we pay attention, SKILL develops over time, and a game we could not win, becomes winnable. This means we can LEARN to win some games. The skills we learn may be somewhat different from game to game.
16. The rules of the game, and the way it is played results in a WIDE variation of winnability. Some games are simply easier to win than others, even when we have no skill. We learn to filter for those games we consider to be WORTH trying to win.
17. Sometimes the Undo command allows a more realistic life experience, and sometimes a LESS realistic one, depending on what you are relating it to. Sometimes errors can be undone and corrected in life. Sometimes they cannot.
18. With Computer Solitaire, you get either a single game in an application, or a bundle of games. Your perception of Solitaire on the computer is strongly affected by the software you choose. The Programmer becomes the origination of your Definition of Computer Solitaire. In life, our definitions of various activities and endeavors may be defined by OUR programmers – our parents, teachers in school, college professors, employers, government, etc.
19. If we approach Solitaire with a track record in analytical problem solving, we will develop our own set of guidelines to improve the odds of winning. Things like looking for a hand with aces showing, or simple rules for ourselves about when we play the drawn card, and when we pass on it, depending on the objective of the game.
20. The way the computer automates the game is NOT always the best way. You can’t always let the computer do it for you, sometimes you have to place the cards yourself in order to get them to go in correctly.
21. According to one source, people who play multiple types of Solitaire learn critical thinking and analytical thinking better than those who do not. Those who play complex types score even higher.

So we do not intend to imply that all the world may be explained and rationalized through the lens of Solitaire.

But it does give one something to think about.