Clock solitaire or clock patience is a card game played by one person where all 52 cards are used and dealt out in 13 piles (4 cards in each pile) with 12 piles representing the numbers on a clock (1-12) and the 13th pile placed in the middle of the clock.
play starts by turning over a card in the middle, for example if that card was a seven you place it at the corresponding 7 pile in respect to the clock and then turn over another card from that pile, for example a jack then you would place it n the coresponding 11 pile and then take a card from that pile. this continues until you draw a king. then you begin again drawing another card from the pile in the middle.
the game is only won if a king is last card to be turned over.
I have been playing this game since I was pretty young and recently began wondering what the probability of winning the game is and i began to think that the probability is very low. i looked at a number of other websites that claim that the probability of winning is 1/13, where this is the probability of drawing a King last within the sequence of drawing cards.
however, they never factor in tha tthe game cannot be won if at the bottom of a pile is the corresponding number. for example if at the bottom of the pile corresponding to 4 on the clock was a 4 card then game cannot be won.
i hope i've explained the game properly so that you can understand.