Soltrio Solitaire

This is more of a quick guide on how I beat the Matrimony and Zodiac games.

Matrimony - I played in Voyage mode as the 'shuffle' bonus you get helped out once or twice but is more luck than anything. What I did was restarted the game unless I was able to use at least 3 to 5 cards on the first deal. Otherwise you're probably going to lose. Also, if you do not have at least one of the piles built up fairly high before you run out of the stock pile you'll probably lose as well, so make sure you're building up one or two piles quickly if possible. Once the game gets down to just a few piles it seems to become easier and you can use your shuffles as you go. Hope this helps, that is how I beat it anyhow, oh that and a lot of cursing. Cursing definitely helps!

Zodiac - For those who might be stuck on Zodiac as I was this is a simple tip on how to win. Continue restarting the game until you have either a King of each suit (in order to build down to an Ace) or an Ace of each suit (in order to build up to King) from there just build up or down as necessary, if you have say two 7 of Hearts then just ensure once you build down to the 8 of Hearts on your King or up to the 6 of Hearts on your Ace then move to the 7 and build the rest up or down. You can go through the deck as many times as you want, so just take your time and make sure you don't accidentally build the wrong way and you should have an easy win.

Archway - I can't really help out on Archway, since I think I got lucky and beat that one fairly quickly. I guess if I had any advice it would be to get one column freed up as soon as you can and do it in Voyage mode to ensure you can use the 'pickup any card from the table' as this helps to get those cards that tend to block you.

Hope this advice helps out!

Play and win all games in either Classic or Voyager mode (contrary to the description that seems to indicate that you need to finish in Classic)

The two hardest games to beat are Archway and Matrimony. Archway is pretty easy when playing in Voyager mode, and practically impossible in Classic Mode. To make it easier, start off with a deal that has few if any Aces or Kings (because they require 12 other cards to be played before them). Keep redealing until you get a tableau without any. Also, if there are any piles in the arch that contain both cards of the same suit, play them - the game has two decks, so the card you're about to play won't be in the tableau.

For Matrimony, it's mostly just a matter of luck. Playing in Voyager mode for Matrimony is a bit easier, but it's still mostly luck.

just in case anyone needs a full list of the classic games, here you go:
3 shuffles and a draw
Aces up
Archway
Backbone
Easthaven
Forty Thieves
Freecell Easy
Freecell
Grandfather's Clock
Klondike deal 3
Klondike easy
Matrimony
Memory
Montana
Sea towers
Spider 1 suit
Super flower garden
Zodiac

Play all the games once in Classic Mode to see which game types you can complete. Remember to keep a list of them and mark the ones you've done since there are alot of them. Whichever ones you had trouble with can be done in Voyage mode where you receive extra moves of play to help after certain amount of points in each gametype. Not all gametypes have extra moves. All thats required is that you win so don't worry about your score if you have to constantly undo your last move to find a solution.

This is just mainly a great advice to play Matrimony, since what I did was to follow these guides plus luck, plus cursing and ... writing down each draw and each card column. So basically I had all the distribution of each card in each column like a map and when I had enough power to do the Shuffle in Voyage game, I double checked my odds of getting one card that will allow to play more cards into the foundations. With this in mind, I keep doing it until the last draws (16) and won

This is what it looked like:
(H - Hearts, D - Diamonds, C - Clubs, S - Spades)
(K - King, Q - Queen, J - Jack, A - Ace)

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- KH
--- --- --- --- --- --- 2D 2C
--- --- --- --- --- --- AC ---
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- 10D
--- --- --- 9D --- --- --- ---
--- --- 6C JS --- --- --- ---
--- --- KD 3C --- --- --- ---
--- AS --- 5C --- JD --- ---

--- --- --- --- --- --- JC KS
--- --- --- --- --- --- QH ---
--- --- --- --- --- --- KC ---
--- --- --- 4C --- --- --- ---
--- --- QC --- --- --- --- ---
2S --- QS --- --- --- --- ---
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
8D QD --- --- --- --- --- ---
AD --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

So my best shot was shuffling to get the 2D from the column 2D and AC for playing the AD later and 8D instead of going for the shuffle to get the 8D in first place. So I will add writing down your cards to keep track of them, I know it takes a lot, but you have more control in the shuffle.

This is the strategy I used for Archway, though keep in mind after this it's pure luck.

Play in Voyage mode as others have said, and focus on building up your specials.

Deal
What you are looking for here is a very workable first deal so keep retrying if you don't have all the following. It's quick to retry and with a layout like below you will find yourself getting close to a win every time, if not outright winning.

1. All Kings and Aces near the top of the Tableau. The more of these there are the more other cards you will have in the Arch which is way more helpful building up piles.
***I found this better than UniformWinters tactic

2. No duplicate cards near the bottom of the Tableau

3. No situation where a higher card is blocking a lower card of the same suit near the bottom of the tableau. i.e. a 7Spades 1-4 cards behind an 8Spades in a row



Game
1. Your first priority should be clearing the Tableau, so move any cards you can from there to the Piles.
2. If there are 2 of the same card in the Arch then you can use them straight away as they won't be in the tableau
3. If you are going to use a card from the Arch try to make sure the matching card is somewhere near the top of the tableau so you won't need it for a while, this is key
4. Your next goal is to build up each pile of the same suit so the are one number away from each other, the King pile being one number higher than the Ace pile. This will basically allow you to clear any card of that suit from the tableau by swapping cards between piles. You can only do this once per suit but if you have a few cards in sequence on the tableau that you can clear this is a great help.

e.g. I have a 6H and 5H on the tableau, and King-Ace piles are 9H and 8H respectively, I would do the following:

9H -> 8H -> 7H
8H -> 7H -> 6H

This will allow me to clear both 6H and 5H from the tableau





Specials
1. Do not use the Row Shuffle move until you have built up to a Pick Any Card special as it will take much longer to build up.

2. Once you unlock Pick Any Card, ideally look for a card that will help you clear more cards from the bottom of the tableau, BUT DON'T USE IT YET!
Instead, check the bottom of the same row to see if there are any usable cards. If not use the shuffle on this row first. This has a chance of giving you the card you would have picked without having to pick it, so you can use Pick Any Card on something else, very nice!

If there are cards that you need at the bottom of the row then use the shuffle on a different row, OR if you need all the cards at the bottom then don't use the shuffle. Save it for the next time you use Play Any Card which will also build up quicker with Shuffle full.

3. Undo Move will not give you back your specials if you mess them up so if you waste a special just restart, you will likely need every single one of them



*** This will still take a while depending on how lucky you are but this makes the game way less frustrating and makes you feel like you actually have a chance of winning :)