Clock Patience


Clock Patience, also called Clock Solitaire, is a luck-based patience or solitaire card game with the cards laid out to represent the face of a clock.

Rules

One deck of cards is used. The deck is shuffled and twelve piles of four cards each are laid out, face down, in a circle. The remaining four cards are placed, also face down, in a pile in the center of the circle.
The twelve positions around the circle represent the 12-hour clock and the pile in the middle represents the hands.
Play starts by turning over the top card of the central pile.
When a card is revealed, it is placed face up under the pile at the corresponding hour and the top card of the pile of that hour is turned over. If a King is revealed, it is placed face up under the central pile.
Play continues in this fashion and the game is won if all the cards are revealed.

Luck

Clock Patience is a purely mechanical process with no room for skill. The chances of winning are exactly 1 in 13.

Variations

A variation of Clock Patience commonly called Watch is played like Clock Patience, but players can continue the play when the fourth king appears, by replacing it with a still face-down card. The game ends when that fourth king reappears.
German Clock is a stock and waste type of solitaire originally called "Die Uhr", and described in a German solitaire book by Rudolf Heinrich from 1976. This gives rules for very different game-play that depends on skill not to miss cards that can be played to the foundations.