Black Diamond

Black Diamond is a quick solitaire game played with a traditional deck of cards. Place cards from the black suits (clubs, spades) to a diamond-shaped grid around four diamond cards, following these placement rules: suits must alternate, and the values must equal the sum, difference, product, or quotient or any number of touching diamond cards. Be careful, though - whenever a card limit has been reached or there are no legal moves, precious new diamond cards must be added to the grid. If you run out of the diamonds, it's game over, but if you manage to place all black cards to the diamond, you win!

Set up

Remove all Hearts and Jokers from the deck. They will not be used in this game. Separate the Diamonds suit, shuffle and deal the top 4 cards to the table in a diamond shape as shown below. Place the remaining cards face-down off to one side (Diamonds Deck). Shuffle the Spades and  Clubs suits together and deal the top 2 cards to your hand. Place the remaining cards face-down nearby (Black Deck).

Card Values

A=1, J=11, Q=12, K=13

Gameplay

A player must place their cards in their hand to the grid, next to at least one Diamond card (shown by a black dotted rectangle in the figure above). Only after placing both cards may a player redraw 2 cards from the Black Deck back into their hand. 

A turn consists of two parts:

1. Play a black card from your hand to the grid according to placement rules

2. Clear any black card piles that have reached their limit, replenishing all adjacent Diamond cards with cards from the Diamond Deck.   

Placement rules

1. Cards placed on the Outside Edges (touching only one Diamond card) must match the value of the Diamond card. Up to 3 cards can be placed onto each outside edge.

2. Cards placed on the Inside Edges (touching two Diamond cards) must be either equal in value to one of the two adjacent Diamond cards, or be equal in value to the sum, difference, product or quotient of the two Diamond cards. For example, the following cards could be placed between a 2 and 6 of Diamonds: an 8 (2+6), a 4 (6-2),  a Q(2×6=12) or a 3(6÷2=3), in addition to a 2 or 6. Up to 4 cards can be placed onto each Inside edge.

3. Any card may be placed in the Center (touching four Diamond cards). Up to 5 cards can be placed in the Center.

4. When adding cards to a pile with previously placed cards, cards must alternate in suit.

When a card cannot be played anywhere

If a card cannot be legally placed, the player has the following options:

1. The player may draw a card from the Diamond Deck and use it to replace any of the four Diamond cards in the grid. This action can be repeated as long as there are cards still remaining in the deck.

2. The player may clear any pile of black cards from the grid, refreshing all adjacent Diamond cards with new cards from the Diamond Deck.

Winning

If you place all the cards from the Black Deck without the Diamond Deck running out, you win! If you ever need to replenish the grid with Diamond cards and you do not have enough, you lose! If playing the last card from the Black Deck causes a pile to reach its limit, you must clear that pile and be able to replenish its adjacent Diamond cards.