5 Card Games To Play When You’re Alone In Your Dorm

Since we’re all stuck in quarantine, it can be difficult to find something to do. If you have a deck of playing cards, which I’m pretty sure everyone does, there are a lot of single-player card games to play.

Grab a deck of cards and a flat surface and have some fun. There are several different games you can play, so these are just a couple of them. There are variations of the games in this article, so it’s okay if you play the game slightly differently than I’m telling you to. My family has played so many card games over the last year that this is all from memory, so if the rules are a little off, I’m sorry.

1. Accordion

This is a version of solitaire and it is fairly easy once you understand the rules. Using a single deck of cards, deal them out into rows. The object of the game is to get all 52 cards in the same row by the end of the game. You can place the cards on top of each other if they match by suit or by value. Cards and stacks can be matched by their immediate left or three cards to the left. 

For example, a nine of clubs that is the very first card in the second row can be placed on the nine of hearts that is third from the right on the first row. The rows are there to save you space, the number of cards in each row does not matter.

There are two variations to play this game: one where you deal out every card before you start and one where you pile up the cards as you deal.

2. Devil’s Grip

This solitaire variant is a single-player game that uses two decks of cards. You should have a total of 96 cards. Shuffle them together and deal out three rows of eight cards face up. Keep the rest separate for a stockpile to place on the cards. The point of the game is to stack the cards according to suit and into piles of specific values. Each row will have 4 piles.

The top row will have 2, 5, 8, and Jacks. The second row will have 3, 6, 9, and Queens. The bottom row will have 4, 7, 10, and Kings. The twos will be on the bottom with the fives on top and the eights on top of the five and the jacks on top of the eights. It seems a little confusing, but it will make sense when you play. Once you’ve dealt out the cards into rows, you can start stacking by suits from anywhere.

Once you run out of moves on the table, you can start using the stockpile cards, taking them out by threes, like regular solitaire. Place these cards into their appropriate spot and then replace any free spot with the top face-down card. Repeat as necessary until you’ve run out of moves or you moved all the cards into the right spaces.

3. Pyramid

This is a matching game played with one deck of cards. The object is to clear away all the pairs of cards that equal 13. To set the game up, shuffle your cards and place 28 cards into a pyramid, with the cards face up. Start with a single card at the top, then put two cards on the next row. There should be seven rows of cards when you are done making the pyramid. 

To play, you have to match two cards that equal 13. The cards must be fully exposed, which means no other card is covering up any part of another card. Or you can match a card from the stockpile to a card in the pyramid. Kings are 13, Queens are 12, Jacks are 11, and Aces are 1.

You can go through the stockpile one card at a time if you want the easiest way to play, or you can go through three cards at a time if you want a challenge. When you match all of the cards, you have won the game.

4. Monte Carlo Solitaire

This solitaire game can be easy, but it can also be more challenging than you thought at first glance. You may find yourself resetting it more often than you win. It is also called Weddings or Neighbors because of the quick matching concept. Shuffle the cards and then deal 25 of them out in a 5 by 5 grid, face up. Hold the rest to put them in a stockpile to the side.

The game is played by matching any pairs of cards of the same value that are adjacent. They can be to the left, right, up, down, or diagonal, and discard them. Once you’ve matched all of the cards, consolidate the board by moving everything to the left and up. All cards on the left get moved up a row and enter on the right side.

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Fill in the rest of the grid by putting the cards from the stockpile in the empty spaces. This game has several strategies that you will pick up on after a few games, and that is a good thing. The strategies might help you win the games.

5. Bowling Solitaire

This solitaire game only requires the ace through 1o of two suits of a deck of cards, and you’ll need some scrap paper and a pencil. On the scrap paper, draw a bowling scorecard, with a horizontal grid including 10 boxes and two smaller boxes in the top right corner of each frame. The smaller boxes represent the number of pins knocked down in each frame, and the larger boxes will be the total score up until that frame.

To play, you will try to remove or knock out the pin cards by using the face-up ball cards. Pins can be knocked down in three ways: the pin card and the ball card have the same value, two or more pin cards equal the value of the ball card, or the last digit of pin cards equal the value of the ball card. For example, the ball card is a 6, and there are two pin cards that equal 16.

There are a few cards that cannot be knocked down until the cards around them are, like the middle card of row three and the two middle cards of row four. Remove the pin cards using the ball cards and then flip over another ball card. Keep going until you’ve removed all of the pin cards, or until there are no more moves. This is your first frame. Shuffle the cards and reset them. 

To keep score, if the first ball card knocks down five pins, put a five in the small square and then roll the next ball. If that card knocks down two more cards, you have scored a seven for that frame.

There are so many variations of these card games to play, and I’m sure I’ve missed some. Feel free to leave other games in the comments below, and I’ll give them a try.

Featured Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_whist