How to Play Beetle Solitaire

Beetle Solitaire is a variation of Spider Solitaire where all cards are face-up and can be sequenced regardless of suit.

Objective

Your goal is to move all 104 cards to the 8 foundation piles by moving cards from the stock pile and organizing them in the tableau.

The Setup and Play Area

Foundation piles: Once you build a sequence of cards from Ace to King by suit in the tableau, these cards are then moved to the foundation. Successfully placing all 104 cards in the foundation wins the game.

Tableau piles: This area consists of 10 columns, with the first 4 columns containing 6 cards and the last 6 columns containing 5 cards. In total, there are 54 cards in the tableau.

Stock pile: The rest of the cards, or 50 in total, go into the stock pile. You deal face-up cards one at a time to each of the 10 tableau columns. This means you can deal from the stock pile 5 times.

Available moves

• Cards from the stock pile are dealt directly into the tableau face-up. Each tableau column gets one face-up card for each deal.
• Foundations must be built in ascending order by suit in the tableau. Similar to Spider, once a sequence from King to Ace is made of a given suit in the tableau, those cards are then moved to the foundation.
• Tableau cards can be moved by sequencing them in descending order, regardless of suit. For example, a 7 of Spades can be placed on top of an 8 of Clubs, Hearts, or Diamonds.
• You can move multiple cards at one time. To move a group of cards, they must be sequenced regardless of suit, and the top card of that group must be placed on top of a card one rank higher.
• You can place any card in an empty tableau column.
• You win when all cards have been moved to the foundation.

Strategy

• Make sure there are no more useful moves before drawing from the stock pile. Cards dealt from the stock pile can block cards, so make sure to make moves that advance the game before drawing from it.
• Try to empty the tableau columns quickly. This allows you to move any card or sequence to these empty columns and free up cards.
• Move Kings to empty tableau columns. Kings cannot be placed on top of other cards. This means at some point, you'll need to move a King to an empty column to win.
• The first visible sequence may not always be the best one. Plan out your moves to remove as many cards as possible from the tableau.
• If you get stuck, use the undo button. You may not always make the right moves, and you may need to reverse some to win the game.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some games similar to Beetle?

Spider Solitaire, Spiderette, Big Spider and Scorpion both require cards to be built in the tableau before moving them to the foundation.

What are the odds of winning?

When looking at 1,291 random games played, 24 were won, making the win rate 1.86%.

What are other popular Solitaire games?

Here are some good games to try:

• Solitaire
• Mahjong
• FreeCell Solitaire
• Crescent Solitaire
• Yukon Solitaire
• TriPeaks Solitaire
• Pyramid Solitaire
• Golf Solitaire