Royal Marriage

Royal Marriage is a solitaire game played with a standard 52-card poker deck, dating from the 19th century or earlier. Players seek to reunite the Queen of Hearts, at one end of the deck, with her King, at the other, by eliminating all other cards.

To set up a game, the King and Queen of Hearts are removed from a deck, which is then shuffled. Afterwards, the King is placed on the bottom and the Queen placed on top. Cards are dealt, one by one, from the top of the deck and played next to the Queen, forming a row that allows all cards to be seen at once.

Cards can be removed one or two at a time, but only when they are bookended by two cards of either the same suit or rank. If all cards save the Queen and King are eliminated, the game is won; if cards remain and no further moves can be made, the game is lost.

Strategy comes in the form of hand management, deciding which cards to eliminate and when. Immediately discarding cards whenever possible is likely to lead to a loss; rather, cards that can easily be eliminated later -- such as those of the same suit as the King and Queen -- are often better to keep, in case they can be paired up later with other cards to eliminate some stubborn holdouts. Success or failure often depends on which cards the player can manage to hold on to for later use.

Royal Marriage can be played on a table or entirely in-hand. To play the latter, the King is placed on the top of the deck face-down, while the Queen is placed on top of the King face-up. Cards are then dealt from the bottom of the deck onto the Queen, and fanned out to show available moves.

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