Accordion solitaire card game

I’m really into the solitaire card game Accordion. I play it from the Aisleriot card games collection, and I am utterly hooked. It is a very difficult game to complete but I’ve come to understand that the easiest shuffles to win are when all four cards in a rank are on or very close to the bottom row. Funny, it actually says that in the manual, which I never read when I was losing!

I started playing this game a few years ago and never ever managed to complete it. It was only when I finally read the manual and spotted the “Strategy” section right at the end that the wins came. I clearly remember the first time I managed to win a game by following that strategy — I could not believe it. That’s how challenging this game is.

It’s still very tough to play and that “undo” button does come in handy. But that strategy does indeed work. Scoring is almost irrelevant here; what matters is stacking 54 cards underneath one to win.

From the Aisleriot Manual:

Setup
Type of Deck: Standard Deck

Tableau: Fifty-four spaces in five rows of nine and a last row of seven. Deal cards face up one per space. The spaces should be considered as one continuous line, the rows simply arrange the tableau so all of it can be seen at once. Thus the rightmost space of a row is to be considered to the left of the leftmost space of the row below.

Goal
To remove all cards except one.

Rules
Cards are moved singly. Any card can be moved over another card of the same suit or rank that is in the space immediately to its left or three spaces to its left. The card that is covered is removed from play. All the cards (if any) in spaces to the right of the resulting gap are moved to the left one space so as to close the gap. Double-clicking causes the card to move three spaces, if possible, or failing that one space to the left.

Scoring
Each card removed scores 1 point.
Maximum possible score: 51

Strategy
This is a difficult game. Try to find two or three cards of the same rank at or near the last row. Try not to remove any card of this rank. At the end you can move these cards onto each other to win.

Here is a good game setup to attempt. I have the 10s on the bottom two rows, so this is an excellent start. I could also attempt this with the 3s but let’s go with the 10s.

And here is the win with only one card remaining:

This game keeps me sane and has become my favourite waste of time.