Baker’s Game is a great option for Solitaire enthusiasts looking for a different kind of challenge. This game gives players more of a challenge due to organizing cards in the tableau by suit rather than alternate color schemes, making it an overall tougher game than FreeCell.
Baker’s Game Objective
The objective is to sort and stack suits from Ace to King in the foundation, ultimately clearing off the tableau and the free cell areas.
Baker’s Game Setup and Arrangement
Playing Baker’s Game online, you have the benefit of everything being pre-setup for you, but since it helps to know a game’s foundation (setup, etc.), here are the most important.
- This Solitaire game is played with a standard 52-card deck with all four Jokers removed.
- There are three elements to the playing area: The tableau, the free cell area, and the foundation.
The Tableau
The tableau is the area where all of the cards are laid out, or in other words, the main play area. This consists of eight columns with cards stacked 7 rows deep in the first four columns and six deep in the rest. This is where you strategically drag cards around to find Aces and further populate the foundation.
The Foundation
The foundation is where the player can remove cards from the board, with four spots for you to stack cards by suit, starting with Aces, followed by their corresponding cards (2, 3, 4, etc.).
The Free Cell Area
This area has four spots for players to place one card each. Its purpose is to remove a card that might be holding back further play in any of the columns of the tableau.
How to Play Baker’s Game
If you are familiar with FreeCell, all of the rules are very much the same, with the big difference being that you cannot stagger suits or colors to stack cards in the tableau. Only cards of the same suit can be stacked in a descending order. If you are unfamiliar with either game, here is how it’s played.
Getting Started with Gameplay
At the beginning of a round, you’ll see all the cards pre-dealt on the tableau. If there were any Aces open at the bottom of any of the eight stacks, it would automatically be placed into the foundation. The earlier you can open up Aces and get them into the foundation, the better, as that will be your only source of permanently removing cards from the board.
Moving Cards
Card movement, though tricky in-game, is fairly simple.
- During the initial phase of a round, cards can only be moved from the bottom of each column in the tableau, as they are fully visible. These cards can be transferred to the foundation, placed in the free cell area, or shifted from one column to another to form a stack.
- Stacks are formed by placing cards of the same suit in descending order. For instance, a stack could consist of a King of Spades, followed by a Queen of Spades, then a Jack of Spades, 10 of Spades, etc. Effective managing stacks becomes crucial as your round of Baker’s Game progresses, especially from the mid-game onwards.
- When a column is cleared of its cards, the empty space can be filled with a King (which typically works well), a stack of cards from a different column, or any single card.
Using the Free Cells
Though this area appears to make the game easier, it’s not necessarily the case, as there are only four spots to choose from, and they can fill up quickly. Planning a move or two ahead is beneficial when considering which card to move to the free cell area. The quicker you can repurpose these cards, the more advantageous it is.
Not having a clear strategy for clearing the free cell area could result in losing the round of Baker’s Game game if you’re not careful. Running out of moves is easy when all four cells are occupied. With nowhere to move cards off the tableau and nowhere to put the cards in the free cell area, it’s over. Also, the more cards you have in the cells, the fewer cards you can shift around the tableau in a stack.
You can move only one card at a time if a card is in every available cell. One open space allows you to move two cards; two open spots allow you to move three; three spaces allow you to move four, and four spaces allow you to move a stack of five cards (five cards is the maximum number of cards that can be moved in a stack at once).
Using Undo
The undo function should be used if you’ve mis-clicked or exhausted all possible moves and have nothing to lose. Because there are only three, it shouldn’t be used frivolously in this already challenging card game.