Royal Marriage

Royal Marriage is a Patience game using a deck of 52 playing cards.^[1]

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." Although the King and the Queen may be of any suit, most variations involve the King and Queen of Hearts being "wed."

The Queen of the chosen suit (most commonly the Queen of Hearts) is placed immediately on the table while her corresponding King (in this case, the King of Hearts) will always be dealt last. The remaining fifty cards are shuffled and placed on the top of the King.

Cards are dealt one at a time to the right of the Queen. When a pair of cards with the same rank or suit are found to be separated by one or two cards, those in-between cards are discarded. Afterward, the player can look for any resulting pairs with in-between cards to be discarded.

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 the cards dealt out at the beginning of the game after it, ending with the King. This allows for some 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.

References