Play Double Scorpion Solitaire

Two decks, ten columns and nothing held back. Deal a free game of Double Scorpion below and build eight suits from King to Ace.

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Double Scorpion is Scorpion Solitaire played with two decks. All 104 cards are dealt into 10 columns at the start, with no reserve. You build down in suit, move any face-up card with the cards on top of it, and win by forming eight King-to-Ace runs.

How the Double Scorpion deal is laid out

The first four columns get 11 cards each. The other six get 10 each. In the first five columns, the bottom four cards are face down. Every other card on the table is face up.

There’s no stock and no reserve. Everything you’ll play with is already in front of you.

Double Scorpion rules

These rules follow Pretty Good Solitaire’s Double Scorpion page.

  • Build down in suit. A 4 of spades goes on a 5 of spades.
  • Move any face-up card with all the cards on top of it. The group doesn’t need to be in sequence.
  • Fill an empty column only with a King, or a group of cards headed by a King.
  • A face-down card turns over when it’s uncovered.
  • Win by sorting all the cards into eight runs, King down to Ace, each in one suit.

How it differs from Scorpion and Spider

Compared with single-deck Scorpion Solitaire, you get ten columns instead of seven, twice the cards and no three-card reserve to time. The move and build rules are the same.

The two decks change the feel. Every card has a twin. When you need the 7 of hearts, there are two of them, and either one will do. In one-deck Scorpion, every card except a King has exactly one possible home. Here it has two. Pretty Good Solitaire rates Double Scorpion as easy, while its Scorpion page calls the one-deck game difficult.

Against two-deck Spider, the deck count and column count match, but almost nothing else does. Spider builds in any suit, moves only same-suit runs and deals the rest from a stock. Double Scorpion builds in suit, moves any face-up card, and puts every card on the table at once.

Double Scorpion strategy

Free the 20 hidden cards. All the face-down cards sit at the bottom of the first five columns, four per column. Getting to them means moving whole stacks, so plan which pile you’ll break first.

Pick the right twin. With two of every card, you often have two places to put a card. Choose the target that uncovers more, or the one that doesn’t bury a face-down column. The wrong twin can block a whole column for the rest of the game.

Watch for doubled knots. A card can still get trapped under its own next-higher card in the same column. With two decks you have a way out: move it onto the other copy of that higher card.

Kings matter more. Eight Kings, and only Kings can fill empty columns. Note where each one sits. A King deep in a column, on top of cards you need, is the classic Double Scorpion jam.

Long deals reward undo. This site has unlimited undo, and with ten columns there’s room to try a line of play and back out of it.

The board above is free in your browser, with hints, auto-complete, numbered deals you can share, and big-cards mode for a crowded ten-column table. For the empty-column rule that takes any card, try Wasp Solitaire.

Rules source: Pretty Good Solitaire (Goodsol)

Frequently asked questions

How many cards are in Double Scorpion?

Double Scorpion uses two standard decks, so 104 cards in total. All of them are dealt at the start into 10 columns. The first four columns get 11 cards and the rest get 10. There is no stock or reserve, so you never deal more cards during the game.

Is Double Scorpion easier than Scorpion?

Pretty Good Solitaire rates Double Scorpion as easy and calls single-deck Scorpion difficult. A likely reason is the second deck. Each card has a twin, so when one possible home for a card is buried, the other may be free. You still build in suit only, and Kings are still the only cards allowed into empty columns.

How many face-down cards does Double Scorpion have?

Twenty. The first five columns each start with four face-down cards at the bottom. Every other card is face up from the first move. Because so much of the deal is visible, you can plan long sequences of moves before you start, which makes careful play pay off.

What can go in an empty column in Double Scorpion?

Only a King, or a group of cards with a King at the top. That’s the same rule as in Scorpion. It means an empty column is useful only when you have a King ready to move into it, so it pays to know where all eight Kings sit early in the game.