Solitaire variant
Remove all 52 cards by finding pairs. Ten tableau piles of five cards each are dealt face-up, along with two reserve cards. Only the top card of each pile and the reserve cards are in play. Empty piles cannot be refilled. The goal is to clear the whole layout.
Click a card to select it, then click its pair to remove both.
Tableau
Reserve
Gay Gordons is a pairing game named after the Scottish country dance. It uses three distinct removal rules: pip cards (Ace–Ten) pair with other pip cards totaling 11; Jacks pair with other Jacks; and Kings pair with Queens of a different suit. These three rules create a more varied recognition challenge than Pyramid or Elevens, since you must apply different logic depending on whether the card is a pip card, Jack, King, or Queen.
Cards are dealt into a layout (grid or columns depending on implementation). Legal removals from available top cards:
Removed pairs are discarded. Stock cards refill the layout. Win by removing all 52 cards.
Kings must pair with Queens of a different suit — a King of hearts cannot pair with a Queen of hearts. With four Kings and four Queens, the cross-suit constraint limits how many King-Queen pairs are immediately available. Tracking which suits are already paired and which Kings and Queens remain allows you to anticipate whether a King or Queen might be stranded without a partner.
Scanning the layout systematically prevents missed pairs: check pip sums first (many available pairs), then Jack matches, then cross-suit King-Queen combinations. The most common mistake is fixating on a known pip pair and missing a Jack or face-card pairing that removes a more strategically valuable position from the layout.