Sources and verification

Sources consulted

• Scorpion (solitaire) (new tab) (Wikipedia, in English): setup (7 columns of 7 cards, 3 face-down cards in each of the first 4 columns, 3 cards set aside), building by suit, moving a group as a unit, only a King in an empty space, stock dealt onto the first 3 columns when no more moves are possible, sequences left on the tableau, Wasp and Three Blind Mice variants

That page itself cites two books, which we have not consulted:

• “Scorpion”, in The Little Book of Solitaire, Running Press, 2002, p. 76
• Peter Arnold, “Three Blind Mice”, in The Complete Book of Card Games, Hamlyn, 2010, pp. 247-248

Link accessed on 30 October 2026. Scorpion has no official rulebook: the rules described on this site are primarily those of the Scorpion Solitaire app, read from its code; the traditional rules are cited separately.

How the examples are verified

Before each publication, a program checks the 4 example deals and every figure on the site:

• the deal is recalculated from its game code, using the same shuffle as the app, and compared with the deal produced by the app's code;
• 52 distinct cards, 7 columns of 7 cards, 12 face down, 3 in the stock;
• every move of the winning game is replayed and must be allowed by the app’s rules; the game must end in a win;
• the score, move count, stock deal and removed sequences are recalculated and compared with those in the app;
• the rules cited (empty columns, matching suits, stock, sequences, scoring) are checked against the app’s code.

Strategy tips are presented as advice, separately from the rules. The winning game was found by a program that tries moves and backtracks: it proves that the deal can be won, without saying anything about the difficulty of other deals. Found an error? Write to us through the contact page.