Scorpion

Scorpion is a suit-strict tableau game with an unusually generous move rule: you can pick up any face-up card together with everything piled on top of it, in whatever order those cards happen to be. That makes almost any card in the layout reachable, and turns the game into a question of what to disturb rather than what is available.

The catch is that disturbing things has consequences. Every block you shift lands somewhere, and with suit-strict building and Aces that accept nothing, the tableau silts up. Scorpion deals are usually lost not to a dead end but to an accumulation of well-intentioned moves, which is what gives the game its reputation and its name.

Seven columns of seven, with some cards face down in the first four. Columns build down by suit, and the rule that defines the game is which cards you may take: any face-up card, from anywhere in a column, along with every card stacked on top of it — however disordered those are. So you relocate whole ragged blocks to get at what you want. Nothing goes on an Ace, and a column you empty accepts only a King or a run headed by one. Three cards are held back and dealt onto the first three columns when you run out of moves. Assemble four King-to-Ace suit runs and you have won.

The pick-up-anything rule is enormously powerful and also how you lose: every block you move buries something else, and buried cards in Scorpion tend to stay buried. Decide what you are excavating before you start moving things. Getting the face-down cards in the first four columns turned early matters more than making tidy progress on a suit run. Hold the three reserve cards until you genuinely have nothing — they land on the first three columns whether that helps or not.