Boardwalk Solitaire Games
Glossary of Generic Concepts and Terms

BWS home

BWS How To Play

In movement, balance may be obtained

The Deal	The arrangement of the cards at the start of a new game. The "starting 5", or the "starting 9", in reference to the cards seen at the beginning of the game.
Opening	An available slot for a slide ("slide opening"), or a column on either walk that is immediately available for declaration.
Value	The face value of a card.
... Up (Spread)	The number of values presently showing. The "spread" may be as much as "13 up".
Safety	In declaring, setting aside a column for a value that has not yet appeared.
14 Up	As the game matures, where a column has been set aside for a value that has not yet appeared.
Board	All rows, including the hand, in single player variations, or excluding the hand(s) in multi-player variations.
Bloom	(blossom) That which has arisen. Any source card for play. Blooms include any face-up cards on rows 1 and 3, and any cards in a hand.
Thorn	A thorn is a card on row 3 that cannot be turned over. Thorns occur when the remaining cards of a particular value stand face down on the same column of which they are declared. They cannot be overturned, because they are the cards required to turn themselves over. When thorns are the only cards remaining face down, one point may be awarded for each of them.
Garden	When every column on the board is blocked.
Lucky Seven for Two	A variation of Lucky Seven for two players, to cooperatively achieve a win. A lowerwalk column is taken as the second player's hand, leaving a 6-column lowerwalk. Each player plays in turn, or may say "pass" instead. Neither player may reveal the contents of their hand to the other, with exception to what they will see as taken into the hand from the board. The game is ended when both players pass consecutively.

Vertical	Cycling through one upperwalk source stack at a time without any other plays in between. Vertical play leans toward the creation of new openings for filing as directly as possible.
Lateral	Opposite of vertical - "other plays between". Lateral play leans toward generating more cards played and more visible information, and slide openings.
Blockade	Lowerwalk columns that are blocked by each other.
Elf	Fortune, in the form of a card. A "turnover" of fortune.
Good Elf "A Goody"	Where only one value will do, it flips.
Nasty Elf "A Nasty"	Where only one value will not do, it flips.
Tossing Points	Picking up a point or two when playing for a win is deemed to be infeasible. Milking the deal for as many points as can possibly be obtained, destructively in the face of attempts at a perfect game.
Tossing the Hand	The hand is used as a buffer to absorb a motley variety of problematic cards. The purity of the hand is abandoned in the process.
Tossing the Board	In Sqatsi or Cheshire, declaring on the upperwalk in such a way as to preclude the possibility of a perfect ending game. In all variations, declaring the same value on both walks (which is legal).
Saintly Play	No tossing of points, no tossing of the hand, and God forbid, no tossing of the board... All plays supporting the perfect end game, regardless of the odds against pulling it off.
Neti Neti	An ancient philosophy stating that, "any concept regarding the truth is how far away from the truth one is". In Boardwalk Solitaire, it is arguable that the randomness of the deal will eventually defy any one premeditated approach.
Vertigo	In Boardwalk Solitaire, a condition characterized by an inability to practice sound play selection. Conceivably, this is augmented by a lack of consistency in the environment - all elements are transient. Vertigo is arguably prommelgated by a conflict between the player and the deal.
Stone	(The family Stone) An upperwalk source stack. For five columns on the upperwalk, named from left as; Annie, Bobby, Chelsea, Dean and Eve.
Banana	A prize for achievement not otherwise granted title or reward. Declaring the upperwalk in ascending order in the game of Lucky Seven, for example, is worthy of a banana.
Lead Stack	The upperwalk source stack currently being cleared.
Bullpen	The upperwalk source stack to follow the current lead stack.
... Lead	"Single lead", "double lead", "triple lead". Indicates the number of simultaneous lead stacks.
Charging	(lateral charge) "Into the valley of the shadow of death, rode the source cards." Tactically directing oneself towards the creation of openings for slides. In a dedicated charge, row 1 is abandoned in its entirety, and a slide opening is absolutely necessary for a win ("Charge of the Light Brigade").
Kansas	This is where you land when you play your first point to the 13th column.
Detroit	(detroit landing) Coming very close to a winning game, but not quite getting it.
In the Weeds	Somewhere in between where the game begins and ends; usually in the middle. In the context of Kansas or Detroit, this is "outer Mongolia", "the long, dark tunnel", or "no end in sight".
Bottleneck	In the middle of the game there is very often a definite bottleneck, where continuing play is most difficult.
Breaking Through	Coming out of a bottleneck. The beginning of the "end game".
Playing Pixies	Near the end of the game, there is the matter of cleaning up the last few cards, so that each of them ends in just the right place.
Piffle	A strategy that begins and ends in a single play. A nimbly executed play, made presumably for the purpose of gathering information, and which does not contribute to any larger strategy.
Juggling	(Sqatsi/Cheshire) Converting a card in the hand from power to trump, or trump to power.
High Trump	(Sqatsi/Cheshire) "High Trump" is to play row 1 from the hand, as opposed to "trump", where row 2 is played from the hand.
Deadwood	A dead card, or an abundance of dead cards.
Posse	An abundance of live cards.
Loaded for Bear	(Sqatsi, Cheshire)Four trump in the hand.
Occam	The play that anyone would expect next.
Hat Trick	The play that no one would expect next.
Hedging	In declaring the columns of, primarily, the lowerwalk, starting at the left or right end, and working in, so as to keep the central columns open for declaration by any of the remaining values.
Displacement	When one value is declared upon a column, there is the "displacement" of the column in its entirety, such that no other value may go there. Prior to the declaration, there was a home for more than one value, but afterwards, there was only one. Values not declared upon the column have been "pushed" out of it.
Ordered Declarations	Declarations in accordance with blind probability. Where there is a seven column lowerwalk; Aces, 3s, 5s, 7s, 9s, Jacks, and Kings on the lowerwalk, and 2s, 4s, 6s, 8s, 10s, and Queens between the upperwalk and the hand.
Bending the Walks	Electing to declare most of the values in a specific range directly to one walk, also thus "pushing" or "pulling" upon the order of declarations upon the other.
Blueprinting	Charting potential values for each column (on paper).
Vanishing Point	The point at which further calculations will not alter the strategy that is based upon the calculations performed thus far.
Lock	A hand position consumed by a specific card for the remainder of the game, presumably for the purpose of scoring a point.
Up Cards	Strategy based upon the cards which have been seen.
Down Cards	Strategy based upon the cards which have not been seen. Arguably best reserved for the end game.
Bundling the Walks	(Sqatsi, Cheshire) (banding) Like the band which wraps a bundle of newspapers, first declaring upon one of the center upperwalk columns, where the upperwalk must be declared in ascending order. It is then known as to which side of the "band" that the value to play to the hand must lie.

Par

(Don Par) The score of a specific deal of the cards as played using a generic programming algorithm. The par algorithm cycles through every potential path of plays starting with each current play possibility, multiplied by every possible arrangement of cards yet to face. The number of paths ending at each possible ending score for each initial play possibility is then tallied. The highest tally indicates the next play.

Weight

("reference") For a Boardwalk Solitaire game type, the number of cards in the deck minus the par average. Roughly, the ease of winning. From Hopscotch to Lucky Seven to Sqatsi to Cheshire, the weight, or reference continuously decreases.

Count

Akin to "weight", but in this case a present positional evaluation within a single game. For example:

	The number of lowerwalk columns
minus	the number of live plays from the upperwalk
plus	the number of filings from the lowerwalk
	(the following have ranges)
minus	the size of the next upperwalk stack to clear
plus	the number of cards which can presently be filed.

The Unfolding

In assessing either the goal or the nature of the game, determining the end result as contained within the deal.

Kingdom

A metaphor for Sqatsi. Two kingdoms are entwined - that of the deal and that of the player. When the game is won, it is the kingdom of the player. Inclusive of the following parts:

Hand	The King's hand
Gold	A hand point
Fodder	A hand card that will play the lowerwalk
Sword	A hand card that will play the upperwalk
Splinter	A hand card that will neither score nor play
Castle Wall	Row 1 is the wall of the enemy castle, and row 2 is the wall of the player's castle
Back Lines	Row 3 - internal organization and enemy resistance
Homesteads	Built upon row 4.
Knights	Cards to be played to row 2.
Civilians	Cards to be played to row 4.

Game	In competition, each player plays the same deals. For each game played, the higher score counts as one win, a tie score counts as nothing, and a lower score counts as one loss.
Set	12 games.
Match	In competition, one or more sets (not scored separately). A match is decided by total, cummulative highest honors (wins).
Honor	In a competition game, the higher score, which is one honor, or one game (one win).
Breadwinner	In competition, the player who cummulately scores the most points. It is likely that the honors champion will be the breadwinner, but not necessarily so. For example, by way of one win by 25 points, and two losses by 1 point each, honors and points victories will have diverged.
PPG's	For tournament competition prequalification, a series of sets played for the purpose of establishing a tournament-qualifying points-per-game average.
Ranked Player	A tournament player who continues to hold a qualified tournament play ranking.
Procrastination	It seems that every play further reduces the players options. In procrastination, a play that may greatly reduce the options contends strongly as the next play to be made. ("enjoying the view") An example of total game assessment comes immediately to mind. There have been occasions where I have sat up and looked at the board, and where with vigorous analysis, I would then sit back and see that it was beautiful. If a single card would move, the perfect balance of the arrangement would be lost. Perfect balance at the present moment would seem to imply that movement can no longer occur. This is the paradox of movement and balance. It's just another way of looking at it- the big picture has to combine with a continuous stream of plays. First in movement, balance may then be obtained. Such is the nature of cards face down. Alas, to some extent you must arrange them before you can see them. Any other way- would it still be a game?

Paradox	Seemingly, the nature of any approach to these games. Here are some examples: Shuffling the deck for the purpose of arranging it "Safety" Vs "14 Up" "Thorns" "Blockades" "Lateral" Vs "Vertical" "Tossing" Vs "The Perfect Game" "A Win" Vs "A Perfect Game" A Premeditated Approach Vs A Randomized Calling The easier a "gametype" is to play, the harder it is to win "Hedging" Vs "Displacement" "Ordered Declarations" Vs "Bending the Walks" "Blueprinting" Vs "The Vanishing Point" "Up Cards" Vs "Down Cards" In competition: "Honors" Vs "Points" For two players: Playing cooperatively to achieve a win, while each withholds the contents of their hand Polyparadox: "The Hand". To hold gold, or to have power. To absorb splinters, or try for a perfect game. To juggle. For each of the four capacities of a hand card, the grass may be greener on the other three sides.
Beginner	One who has learned how to play.
Intermediate	One who has learned the concepts and terms.
Advanced	One who has unlearned all that one has learned. :-)