Wasp Solitaire

How to play Wasp solitaire

The deal is identical to Scorpion: seven columns of seven, with the bottom three cards of the first four columns face down, and a three-card reserve you may deal onto the first three columns once, at any moment. Moves too: lift any face-up card with everything above it — order inside the group is irrelevant — and drop it on the card exactly one rank higher in the same suit. The one difference is the empty column: in Wasp anything may move there. You win when all four suits stand as complete King-to-Ace columns, built where they lie.

Why one rule changes everything

In Scorpion an empty column is a locked door only a King can open; in Wasp it is a universal workbench. Any awkward group can be parked there, which means burials are temporary rather than fatal — you can lift the junk off a needed card, set it aside, and put it back somewhere better. The measured effect is dramatic: over 1,000 random deals our search solver proved wins on 77.9% of Wasp deals against 12.8% for Scorpion, and even that understates the gap, since the solver gave up within its budget on some winnable boards. Roughly four deals in five are winnable, which turns the family’s trademark frustration into a solvable puzzle.

Playing the empty column well

Free empties reward a different instinct than Scorpion: make empty columns instead of fearing them. A short column is an excavation target — clear it, and every subsequent problem in the game gets easier, because the empty slot lets you unstack any burial one group at a time. The classic manoeuvre is the two-step dig: park a blocking group on the empty column, take the card it was smothering to its same-suit home, then decide at leisure where the parked group belongs. Just avoid the lazy version — dumping cards onto the empty column without a plan rebuilds the same tangle one column to the left.

Wasp vs Scorpion: which should you play?

Play Scorpion when you want the family at full difficulty — a game you will lose more often than win, where the deal itself is the opponent. Play Wasp when you want the same mechanics with room to think: identical deal, identical same-suit single-destination logic, but mistakes are recoverable and most deals reward persistence. Wasp is also the better teacher — the empty-column freedom lets you see why a Scorpion board would have been dead, because in Wasp you can actually perform the rescue that Scorpion forbids.

Wasp strategy tips

How to convert the four-in-five winnable deals:

1. Empty a short column early — a free slot makes every later burial recoverable, and columns five to seven start with no face-down cards to fight.
2. Use the empty column as a workbench, not a warehouse: park a group, free the card beneath, and move the group on — do not let it settle.
3. Flips still come first: the twelve face-down cards in columns one to four are the only unknowns in the game.
4. Keep the reserve for a genuine stall. With free empties you will stall far later than in Scorpion — the three cards go further when the board is truly stuck.
5. Before parking a group, check where its bottom card will eventually land; the best parking spot is one where the group can later leave in one move.

Wasp solitaire FAQ