These tips will help you win more often and score higher in their [Club Bitcoin: Solitaire], both of which will result in more sats stacked!
I've wasted- er, INVESTED hours playing this game and fine-tuning my play, so please like these tweets and follow me so I can maintain the delusion that those were hours well spent.
First off, these are tips to winning and scoring high in THNDR's Solitaire, not just Solitaire in general, which you can google. There's a lot of crossover, of course, but also key differences like the scoring system and the Undo button.
The most important thing to know is that you get the most points from placing cards consecutively on the Foundations (the four stacks at the top). It goes 20 points, 25, 30, etc., but only if consecutive. Placing a card on a Tableau pile (10 points) cancels the streak.
Basically, you want to finish with as long a streak as possible, which means playing as few cards as possible to the Foundations before the "final rush". Sometimes you have to play some to open up other options, but don't play any more than you need to.
This is because two streaks interrupted are a much smaller total than one long streak, even if it's the same total number of cards. For example, two three-card streaks will get you 150 points (20+25+30 x 2) but one six-card streak will get you 195 points! (20+25+30+35+40+45)
You might've wondered how people were scoring thousands of points higher than you in tournaments, this is how. ("Professional Solitaire sat stackers don't want you to know this one weird trick! Doctors hate him!")
Not every Solitaire deal is winnable, and not every winnable deal can score high. E.g. based on the streak system, deals that put all the Aces in the Stock rather than Tableau have higher score potential because you may be able to wait to play them until the final rush.
If they're in the Tableau, unless they're the last card in a pile and you have enough other columns open for the four Kings, you'll have to play them to the Foundations. This means if you find Aces in your Stock pile, wait as long as possible to play each one.
(If you're tapping to play fast, be careful around Aces and Twos, as you could accidentally play these to the Foundations and sacrifice final rush points. You can still play these to the Tableau for 10 more points, but they won't contribute to a streak anymore.)
This brings me to the Undo button. You don't lose points for using it, so use the shit out of it. For example, you could scroll through the entire Stock to see how many Aces are in it (or any other cards of note), then undo all the way back to the top.
Heck, you could write down every card in Stock and refer to that the rest of the game for fewer 100-point deductions resetting the Stock. Let me know if you actually try this - it's a little too psychotic even for me. You could re-deal games until you find a favorable setup, e.g. all four Aces in the Stock pile, or really convenient face-up Tableau cards at launch.
However, I prefer to just play the games as they come because even with those that look good at the start, there's no guarantee they're winnable or high scores. You never know. I've been surprised a lot, both to the upside and downside.
Next. When you have 2 options (2 of the same card), use Undo to see what's under each and determine the best play. You can even come back if you run into trouble farther down the line. Just be careful if undoing past resetting Stock - you can't undo the -100 points!
If you're running low on options but want to check the entire Stock pile before playing a Tableau card to the Foundations, you can scroll through the Stock and, if you don't find anything, undo back to the top rather than resetting it and losing 100 points.
You also don't lose points for the Hint button, so use it to double-check when you don't see options. Careful though - it doesn't always suggest the best play (like playing cards to Foundations prematurely) and it may tell you you're done when you're actually not.
Specifically, when you've built up four big Tableau piles (alternating red and black piles), the Hint may say you're out of options, but you can actually move parts of the piles back and forth to extract two suits (one red, one black) for the Foundations.
This is helpful when you have downcards trapped under a partial pile. You can play two suits to the Foundations, enough to play the partial pile either to Foundations or another pile you've made available, then flip the downcards and keep playing.
This isn't likely to net you a high score, because the streak will likely be interrupted by flipping and playing the downcards, but outside of tournaments, your score doesn't really matter, you just want the win to get those sweet 364 lottery tickets.
Whew, didn't expect this to get so long! I've definitely been playing too much. Hopefully these THNDR-specific tips serve to meaningfully level up your game, and of course, there are plenty of general Solitaire tips online that also make a big difference.
