Poker Patience

These are the rules to a playing card game that, at the time, was a craze. It was the Magic The Gathering of its day.

The game is played solitaire but can be played by any number "For Progressive Parties", so says the publisher.

The game is played on a 5 x 5 grid. The dealer deals himself 25 playing cards, face-down. If it is being played by more than one, then everyone must have their own pack of cards but they do not deal themselves 25 cards from it. The dealer takes the first card from his stack and announces it to the other players. They then find the declared card in their deck. Now all players simultaneously add it to their own grid. Once one card has been played there are limitations on where the next card can go. The second card must be placed adjacent to the one card already in the grid, vertically, horizentally or diagonall. The third card must be so placed but this will have a little more choice because there is a block of two cards which you can adjoin. And so the game goes on until everyone has a block of 5 x 5 cards, 25 in total.

The scoring is now counted. Remember, everyone had the same cards, but it is very unlikely that more than one player will have the same grid. The object is to score points by building up Poker hands, 10 in total, 5 across and 5 down. The scores are; One Pair 1 point Two Pairs 3 pts. Flush 5 pts. Three of a king 6 pts. Full Hand 10 pts (Nowadays we would call this a Full House) Straight 12 pts. Four of a Kind 16 pts. Straight Flush 30 pts.