Pocket Games
Cards & Dice
Part of these games is down to chance: the shuffled deck, the roll of the dice. The rest is down to you, and it is usually the part that counts. You don’t choose what you get; you choose the order you use it in, what to keep and what to let go.
The card games are played alone. Solitaire is Klondike, drawing one card at a time with three passes through the deck, and a game is won or lost on a handful of decisions that all look harmless. Pyramid is shorter and has a single rule: remove pairs of cards that add up to 13. Deals are not picked from solvable ones, so some games can’t be won.
The dice games are played against someone. In Yatzy you have five dice, three rolls per turn and thirteen boxes to fill once each, and you choose between the bot, with three levels, and a game for two to four people on the same phone. Shut the Box is quicker: you flip down the tiles that add up to your roll, and whoever leaves the fewest tiles open wins. You play against the bot or with two, with a box numbered 1 to 9 or 1 to 12.
In each of them the game in progress is saved, so you can stop halfway and carry on later from the same point.
- PyramidHow to play Pyramid solitaire: pairs that add to 13, the order in which to free cards, and why you should check the matching cards before you move.
- Shut the BoxThe rules of Shut the Box, the tavern game with numbered tiles and two dice: how to choose which tiles to close and when to roll a single die.
- SolitaireKlondike Solitaire: the rules and the strategy that makes the difference — when to uncover cards, when not to build foundations, the three deck passes.
- YatzyThe rules of Yatzy with the full scoring table, the 35-point upper section bonus, and the strategy for choosing which box to sacrifice.