When you have a deck of cards and you’re by yourself, there’s only one thing to do and that’s play solitaire. The history of the group of card games known as solitaire dates back to the mid-18th Century, when it was described in a German book of games as a competitive card game where players would take turns or play with separate decks of cards. The idea of playing solitaire completely by one's self probably came out of people enjoying practicing for competitive games. Solitaire took hold in English society in the late 19th Century, but it wasn’t until the second half of the 20th Century that most modern forms of game began to take shape. Hundreds of books describing hundreds of different solitaire games have been published. With the advent of the personal computer in the 1980s, the game of solitaire was transformed into an addictive pastime requiring only the click of a mouse to play. Today, there are more than 100 distinctly individual solitaire games, with that number reaching more than 1,000 when you consider minor variations. From Klondike to Scorpion, today’s solitaire games are diverse, challenging and fun.