Thumb and Pouch

Thumb and Pouch is Klondike with the handbrake off. The layout is identical, the goal is identical, and one building rule is different: cards go down onto any suit but their own, rather than strictly alternating red and black.

It sounds minor and it is not. Three suits will accept each card instead of two, and spaces can be filled by anything rather than waiting for a King, so positions that would be dead in Klondike stay alive here. The result is a recognisably easier game that still feels like the one you know — which makes it a good step for anyone who likes Klondike's shape but not its habit of stranding you six moves from the end.

The layout is Klondike's — seven columns of ascending length, one card face up on each, four foundations building up by suit from Ace. One rule changes, and it changes everything: instead of building down in alternating colours, you build down onto any suit except the card's own. Three of the four suits will take any given card, where Klondike allows only two. Ordered sequences move under the same relaxed rule, and an emptied column accepts any card or any legal group, not just a King.

Both relaxations pull in the same direction, so this plays as a distinctly gentler Klondike. Three suits accepting each card means far fewer dead ends, and being able to fill a space with anything means an empty column is immediately useful instead of something you hold for a King. The usual Klondike discipline still applies — dig out face-down cards before advancing the foundations — but the penalty for a merely adequate move is much lower. A good place to go if Klondike's draw-three version has been beating you.