Royal Marriage is a
patience or solitaire
Patience (Europe), card solitaire, or solitaire (US/Canada), is a genre of card games whose common feature is that the aim is to arrange the cards in some systematic order or, in a few cases, to pair them off in order to discard them. Most are in ...
game using a deck of 52
playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...
s. It is an eliminator game in the style of the solitaire game
Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
. The game is so called because the player seems to remove anything that comes between the Queen and the King of the same suit for them to "marry." It also goes under the name Royal Wedding or Matrimony.
History
First recorded by Hoffmann (1892),
[Hoffmann (1892), pp. 14–15.] Royal Marriage is subsequently described by many others up to the present, include Morehead & Mott-Smith (1949, 2001)
[Morehead & Mott-Smith (1949), pp. 66–67.] and Parlett (1979).
[Parlett (1979), p. 183.]
Rules
The Queen of the chosen
suit
A suit, also called a lounge suit, business suit, dress suit, or formal suit, is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles generally worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt su ...
(traditionally the Queen of Hearts) is placed immediately on the table face-up while her corresponding King is placed face-down. The remaining fifty cards are shuffled and placed on the top of the King to form the stock. Cards are dealt from the stock one at a time to the right of the Queen. If a pair of cards with either the same rank or suit are separated by one or two cards, the in-between cards may be discarded. This may result in new opportunities to discard additional cards.
Strategy revolves around decisions of whether to discard cards or not. It may be advantageous to retain as many cards of the Queen's suit as possible, as these may be easily eliminated by the King or Queen at any tie, but may be helpful in eliminating other cards.
The game is won when the King and Queen are brought together -- that is, when only one or two cards remain in between them, which can then be discarded.
Variations
Royal Marriage is possible to play in-hand, rather than on a surface such as a table. In this case, the deck is held face-down in one hand, with the King being uppermost face-down card and the Queen being held face-up above it. Cards are played from the bottom of the deck onto the Queen, and fanned out to show all cards that could possibly affect play.
Alternatively, the Queen can be played on one end of a surface, and all cards dealt out at the beginning to the Queen's right, ending with the King. This allows for an additional measure of strategy: being able to view the entire sequence of cards allows the player to choose which cards to discard and in what order to ensure a win.
Push-Pin is a variant of Royal Marriage that uses two decks.
See also
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List of patiences and solitaires
This is a list of patiences, which are card games that are also referred to as solitaires or as card solitaire.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but only includes games that have met the usual Wikipedia requirements (e.g. notability ...
*
Glossary of patience and solitaire terms
Games of patience, or (card) solitaires as they are usually called in North America, have their own 'language' of specialised terms such as "building down", "packing", "foundations", "talon" and "tableau". Once learnt they are helpful in de ...
References
Literature
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Professor Hoffmann
Angelo John Lewis, known pseudonymously as Professor Hoffmann (born 1839–1919), was an English-born barrister, Magic (illusion), illusionist and writer who has been described as "the most prolific and influential magic author and translator unti ...
ngelo Lewis(1892). ''The Illustrated Book of Patience Games''. London: Routledge.
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Morehead, Albert
Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr. (August 7, 1909 – October 5, 1966) was a writer for ''The New York Times'', a bridge player, a lexicographer, and an author and editor of reference works.
Early years
Morehead was born in Flintstone, Taylor County, ...
and
Geoffrey Mott-Smith
The Mott-Smith Trophy, named for writer and cryptographer Geoffrey Mott-Smith, is awarded to the player with the best overall individual performance in the Spring Nationals, the spring event of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North Ame ...
(1949). ''The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience.'' New York: Longmans.
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Morehead, Albert
Albert Hodges Morehead, Jr. (August 7, 1909 – October 5, 1966) was a writer for ''The New York Times'', a bridge player, a lexicographer, and an author and editor of reference works.
Early years
Morehead was born in Flintstone, Taylor County, ...
and
Geoffrey Mott-Smith
The Mott-Smith Trophy, named for writer and cryptographer Geoffrey Mott-Smith, is awarded to the player with the best overall individual performance in the Spring Nationals, the spring event of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) North Ame ...
(2001). ''The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience.'' Foulsham, Slough.
*
Parlett, David
David Parlett (born 18 May 1939 in London) is a games scholar, historian, and translator from South London, who has studied both card games and board games. He is the president of the British Skat Association.
Life
David Sidney Parlett was bo ...
(1979). ''The Penguin Book of Patience'', Penguin, London. {ISBN 0-7139-1193-X
{{Solitaire
Closed non-builders
Single-deck patience card games
Pocket patience card games