Scorpion Solitaire: most deals cannot be won, even with perfect play
Scorpion lays out seven columns of seven cards, with a few cards hidden in the first four columns and three more held back in a small stock. You build down in suit, you may pick up any face-up card along with everything on top of it, and the aim is to assemble four complete suits from King down to Ace.
Our study found something striking. Even a solver that knew where every hidden card was, and what the three stock cards would be, proved 67.5% of the 3,000 deals it played to be impossible under this site's rules. It found a win in only 12.9%; the other 19.6% ran past its search budget. So at most about a third of Scorpion deals can be won, by anyone.
That is worth knowing before you play. In Scorpion, losing is usually not your fault.
At a glance: Scorpion in numbers
| What we measured | Result | Deals | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deals won with perfect knowledge | 12.9% (95% range 11.7–14.1%) | 3,000 | Solver that sees hidden cards and the stock, 200,000 positions per deal |
| Deals proven impossible | 67.5% (65.8–69.2%) | 3,000 | Same solver |
| Deals left undecided | 19.6% | 3,000 | Ran past the budget |
| Most that can be won | 32.5% at most | 3,000 | Solved plus undecided |
| Deals with at least one King face down | 65.2% | 3,000 | Counted from the deal |
| Solved with 2 or more Kings face down | 14.0% | 645 | Same solver |
| Solved with no King face down | 12.1% | 1,045 | Same solver |
No published study has measured this version of Scorpion, so the figures above are original.
The rules on this site
- One pack of 52 cards.
- Seven tableau columns of seven cards. In the first four columns the bottom three cards start face down; everything else is face up. That makes 12 hidden cards on the table.
- A three-card stock. One click deals one card onto each of the first three columns. You may deal it at any time, but only once.
- On the tableau you build down in the same suit: the 9 of spades goes on the 10 of spades.
- You may move any face-up card together with every card on top of it, whether or not those cards are in order.
- Only a King (with whatever sits on it) may go into an empty column.
- When a column holds a complete suit from King down to Ace, it is removed automatically. Complete all four suits to win.
Why so many deals are lost
Kings only in empty columns
An empty column is the key resource in most solitaire games. In Scorpion only a King may use it, so a column you have cleared cannot help you untangle a stack unless the right King is free.
Same-suit building leaves few landing spots
Each card can only go on one card in the whole deck: the next higher card of its own suit. If that card is buried in the wrong place, the card you want to move is stuck.
Tangles form early
Because you can pick up a face-up card with everything above it, the first moves often drag unsorted cards along. A deal can become knotted in ways that no later move can undo, and our solver proved that happens in about two deals out of three.
Where the Kings start doesn't decide the game
You might expect hidden Kings to be the main problem. In 65.2% of deals at least one King starts face down. But the solver won 14.0% of deals with two or more Kings hidden and 12.1% with none hidden, a difference small enough to be chance. The real problem is how the suits are interleaved, not where the Kings sit.
Strategy for the deals you can win
Uncover the hidden cards first
Twelve cards start face down in the first four columns. Until you see them you are planning blind. Moves that turn over a hidden card come first.
Think before using the stock
The three stock cards land on the first three columns and can bury cards you need. Some players deal them early to get them out of the way; others hold them until a column is ready. Look at what sits on top of columns one to three before you decide.
Free a King before you clear a column
An empty column is only useful with a King to put in it. Know which King is going there, and what it will bring with it, before you empty the column.
Accept the odds
With at most about one deal in three winnable, a lost game of Scorpion is normal. If a position looks hopeless after a careful try, it very likely is. Start a new deal.
Playing Scorpion here
Scorpion is free on this site, with no download, installation, sign-up or email needed, and it works in any modern browser on a computer, tablet or phone. The cards are large and clear, with a zoom control. Use Hint, unlimited Undo, Restart and Auto Play whenever you like, and drag or tap cards to move them. Wins, time and moves are tracked for the current game, and you can mute the sound, go fullscreen and change the table colour.
How we did the research, step by step
The free-solitaire.nz team ran this study in September 2026 to find out how many Scorpion deals can be won on this site, with its exact rules.
- Read the rules from the site's code. Scorpion is a branch of the site's Spider engine: seven columns of seven with three cards face down in the first four columns, a three-card stock dealt once to the first three columns at any time, same-suit building, any face-up card moving with the cards above it, Kings only in spaces, and complete suits removed automatically.
- Rebuilt the game as a program and checked that it follows those rules.
- Dealt 3,000 numbered games, seeds 1 to 3,000, so every deal can be replayed exactly.
- Chose a "thoughtful" solver. It knows the 12 hidden cards and the 3 stock cards from the start, which no player does. So its result is a ceiling: if it proves a deal impossible, no player can win it.
- Ran it with a budget of 200,000 positions per deal. The 3,000 deals took about 48 minutes.
- Double-checked "impossible". A second, separate brute-force search re-checked two deals the solver had called impossible and confirmed both verdicts.
- Looked for published figures. Blake and Gent (2026, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research) do not cover Scorpion, and we found no figure for this rule set elsewhere.
- Worked out the margin of error and the limits. The proven-impossible share is 67.5% with a 95% range of 65.8–69.2%. Because 19.6% of deals were undecided, we can say only that between 12.9% and 32.5% of deals are winnable.
The technical side
The simulation is written in Python 3.11 with only the standard library. Scorpion shares a module, spiderlike.py, with Simple Simon. The solver is a best-first search that knows the face-down cards: it always explores the most promising position next and keeps a table of positions already seen so it never searches one twice. The independent cross-check lives in verify_scorpion_bruteforce.py. A shared runner.py spreads the deals across parallel worker processes with multiprocessing, each deal is shuffled from a numbered seed, and the 95% ranges are Wilson score intervals. An AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic) helped us write and review the code and draft this page; no figure came from the AI. They all come from running the solver, and the team reviewed them before publishing.
By Admin, free-solitaire.nz. Study date: 19 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I lose Scorpion so often?
Because most deals cannot be won. Our solver proved 67.5% of deals impossible even while seeing every hidden card.
Can I move cards that are not in order?
Yes. Any face-up card can be moved together with everything on top of it, in any order.
When should I deal the three stock cards?
Whenever it suits you, but only once. Check what they will cover on the first three columns first.
What can go in an empty column?
Only a King, with any cards on top of it.
What is a more winnable game like Scorpion?
Try Yukon, which also lets you move unordered stacks, or Spider Solitaire with one suit.