Play Chinese Discipline — Seven by Seven, and a Stock of Three

Chinese Discipline puts the Yukon move rule on an unusually square board. Seven columns are dealt seven cards each — forty-nine in all — and the face-up pattern is a staircase running the other way from Klondike's: the first three columns are entirely open, the fourth shows four cards, the fifth three, the sixth two and the seventh just one. Three cards are left over, and that is the whole stock. Any face-up card may be moved with everything on top of it, packed or not; cards build down in alternating colour; only a king fills an empty column. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.

How Do You Play Chinese Discipline?

Goal: build all 52 cards onto the four foundations, up in suit from an ace.

Setup

• Columns: seven, of seven cards each — 49 in all.
• Face up: the first three columns entirely; then four, three, two and one.
• Stock: just three cards.
• Foundations: four, up in suit from an ace.

Rules

• Any face-up card moves with its whole tail, packed or not — the Yukon rule.
• Cards build down in alternating colour: a red six on a black seven.
• A card turns face up when the cards above it are moved away.
• The stock holds three cards. Clicking it deals one to each of the first three columns — the only deal in the game.
• There is no waste and no redeal.
• You win when all 52 cards are on the foundations.
• Only a king may be moved into an empty column.

What's the Best Chinese Discipline Strategy?

• Your three open columns are the workshop. Columns one to three are entirely face up from the start, which means every card in them is a legal source. Use them to stage runs while you dig at the buried end.
• The seventh column is the problem. Six cards face down under one — it is the deepest hole on the board and nothing else will be solved until you start on it. Prefer any move that turns a card there.
• Save the deal. Three cards is one deal and no more, and it lands on the three columns that least need help. It is worth keeping for a moment when a single card would unlock a sequence, not spent because you have run out of ideas.
• Kings are scarce currency. With only a king able to fill a space, and forty-nine cards on the board, an empty column is hard to earn and hard to use. Know where all four kings are before you make one.
• Move deep, not often. The Yukon rule lets you lift a ragged pile whole. One well-chosen big move usually beats three small ones, because it exposes more at once.

A Short History

Chinese Discipline is one of a small group PySolFC marks as extra-original — Yukon variants fed like Klondike. Its board is the most distinctive of them: instead of a staircase of one to seven, every column holds exactly seven cards, and the hidden ones form a diagonal running from an entirely open first column to an almost entirely buried seventh. The source never states that pattern; it emerges from six deal rounds whose parameters run three, three, three, four, five, six, followed by a final face-up row. Forty-nine cards on the board leaves three in the stock, so the game has exactly one deal in it — a striking design choice, and one that makes the deal a decision rather than a habit. The collection rates it balanced, and pairs it with Chinese Solitaire, which is the same game with any card allowed into an empty column.

About This Version

This Chinese Discipline runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer; once installed it works offline. Unlimited undo, statistics, and a daily challenge that gives every player the same deal that day.

Other Solitaire Games to Try

• Chinese Solitaire — the same board, any card into a space
• Queenie — a 1-to-7 staircase dealt face up, 24 in stock
• Yukon — the original — every card dealt, no stock
• Moosehide — Yukon's board, built down in any suit but the same