Introduction: Penguin is an interesting twist on FreeCell Solitaire. The beginning of the foundation is randomly chosen every game, there are 7 tableau piles and 7 freecells, and the tableau is build down in suit.
Goal: Build up all cards in sequence, from ace to king, on the four foundation piles.
Time: About 20 minutes
Wins: Usually
Decks: One Deck
Layout: After shuffling, tableau piles are dealt with 7 cards each. The cards are all overlapping so that you can see the rank and suit of each card in the pile. The low-rank card of the game is randomly selected as the first card dealt. So, the top card of the left-most tableau column is chosen a the low-rank of the game. Three of the four foundation pile will be dealt the low ranked card, to give you a start on filling the foundations. The foundation cards are in a column on the right-hand part of the screen. All cards are dealt in Freecell, leaving no stock pile. Seven additional spaces are available for freecell piles. These are in the top part of your layout. The initial layout for Penguin Solitaire will look like this.
Play: The goal in Penguin is to build each foundation pile in suit from whichever card has been randomly selected to be the low-rank card of the game, to the high-rank card of the game. Three of the four foundation piles will be started for you with the low-ranked card (which is the top card in the left-most tableau column). So, when you come across the next card up, you may place it in that foundation pile. Building wraps around, so after placing, say, a king of hearts on a foundation pile, the next card to be placed is an ace of hearts.
The top face-up card on the each tableau pile is available for play. Also, any card in a freecell is available for play. In order to build up the foundation, you need to uncover the covered-up cards in the tableau, to get them into play. You do this by moving tableau cards onto the foundation and onto the seven freecells, and onto other columns in the tableau. Each freecell can hold only one card at a time.
Cards on the tableau are build down in suit. So, in this way, a queen of hearts must be placed onto a king of hearts. And six of hearts must be placed onto the 7 of hearts. These cards are all overlapped, so that you can see what they are. The high card and low cards vary from game to game. The first card dealt, or the top-most card in the left column of the tableau, is selected to be the low card of that particular game. Because of this, the card sequence will wrap around. If, for example, a 9 is randomly selected as low card, then the sequence build up on the foundation will be 9, 10, jack, queen, king, ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. When a card becomes uncovered, and hence, becomes the top-most card in a column, that card is now available for play.
Cards in sequence on a column in the tableau may be moved as a unit. Moving more than one card at one time is often a useful move.
Freecells can hold only one card at a time, and the cards in the freecells are available for play. It is best to keep as many freecells empty as possible. This allows flexibility in moving cards around the tableau. If at all possible, try to move cards onto the freecells only when necessary, and only when you can move them back off the freecells back onto the tableau piles, or foundation, as soon as possible.
Cards may not be moved from the foundation back to the tableau or onto any of the freecells. Because of this, it may make more sense to keep cards on the tableau and in the freecells, and available for play, rather than moving them early on to the foundation.
Gaps in the tableau may be filled with the card or valid sequence, which is one rank lower than the first card dealt to each foundation pile. Creating a gap is usually a good move in Penguin. When you have created a gap, try to fill the gap with as large a sequence of cards as possible.
Continue playing in this manner. Move cards from the freecells to the tableau and the foundation, and from the tableau to the foundation and to the freecells, and within the tableau, trying to uncover tableau cards and move them to the foundation.
When no more moves can be made on the tableau, freecells, and foundation, the game is over and lost.
Gaps: Gaps in the tableau in Penguin Solitaire are made when all of the cards are moved out of a column of the tableau. When this happens, the gap may be filled the card or valid sequence, which is one rank lower than the first card dealt to each foundation pile. Try to fill a gap with as large a sequence as is valid.
Redeals: In Penguin Solitaire there are no redeals.