We've all done it. You're halfway through a game of Solitaire, everything seems to be going nicely, and then suddenly you're stuck. There are cards you can't reach, columns you can't move and absolutely nothing useful left to do.
The annoying part? You probably had a perfectly good move available five minutes earlier.
It's particularly familiar to anyone who plays Klondike, the classic version of Solitaire with seven columns of cards and four foundation piles. A move can seem obvious at the time, only to cause problems further down the line. And while not every game can be won, a few familiar mistakes can make winning considerably harder.
Here are some worth watching out for.
Moving cards just because you can
It's surprisingly easy to get into the habit of moving every card that's available. A black seven can go on a red eight? Move it. There's an Ace ready for the foundations? Up it goes.
But Solitaire isn't about making as many moves as possible. It's about making the right ones.
Take a simple example. You've got two black sevens that could both sit on the same red eight. One is covering a face-down card, while the other is already at the bottom of a column.
Moving the first seven might uncover something useful. Moving the second achieves very little.
Both moves are legal, but they aren't equally valuable.
Before moving a card, it's worth asking what you'll actually gain from doing it.
Getting carried away with the foundations
There's something satisfying about building up those four foundation piles. Every card moved feels like progress, and watching the suits grow from Ace towards King gives you a reassuring sense that you're getting somewhere.
The trouble is that cards on the foundations can sometimes be more useful in the tableau.
Imagine moving a red four to its foundation, only to discover that you need it to hold a black three while rearranging another column. Depending on the version you're playing, getting that four back might not be possible.
Aces and twos are generally safe to move early in Klondike Solitaire, but with higher cards, a little patience can help.
The foundations are where your cards need to finish. That doesn't mean they all need to get there as quickly as possible.
Forgetting what's underneath
One of the most useful things you can do in Klondike Solitaire is uncover face-down cards. After all, you can't make much use of a card you haven't seen.
Yet it's easy to become distracted by the cards already showing.
You might spend several moves building a neat sequence of alternating colours, even though those moves haven't revealed anything new.
Meanwhile, another column has a single card standing between you and a face-down card.
Sometimes the less impressive-looking move is the one that opens up the game.
Try paying attention to which columns offer the best chance of revealing hidden cards. You won't always know what's underneath, but giving yourself more options is rarely a bad thing.
Filling an empty column too quickly
An empty column feels like something that needs filling. There's a space on the table, you've got a King available, and moving it there seems like the obvious thing to do.
Not necessarily.
In Klondike, an empty column is valuable because only a King, or a sequence headed by a King, can be moved into it.
If you've got more than one King available, choosing which one to move can make a difference.
Perhaps one King is covering several face-down cards, while another is already exposed. Moving the first could unlock an entire column. Moving the second might simply fill the space.
There's no prize for filling an empty column immediately. Sometimes it's better to wait until you can make proper use of it.
Not thinking about the next move
This is probably the mistake that catches most of us out.
You spot a move, make it, and only then start looking for the next one.
A better habit is to think just one or two moves ahead.
If you move that black nine onto a red ten, what happens next? Does it uncover another card? Can you move the sequence somewhere useful? Are you blocking a card you might need?
You don't need to plan the entire game. In fact, with hidden cards involved, that's usually impossible.
But spending a few seconds considering what a move makes possible can save you from some frustrating dead ends.
If you enjoy that sort of forward planning, FreeCell Solitaire offers a different challenge. Every card is visible from the start, so there's much more opportunity to work out your next few moves.
Sometimes the cards just don't cooperate
Of course, you can make all the right decisions and still lose. Not every Solitaire deal is winnable, and sometimes the card you desperately need is buried somewhere you can't reach.
That's part of the appeal. You never quite know whether you're one clever move away from turning things around or whether the game was a lost cause from the start.
And there's always that moment when you realise what you should have done three moves ago. It's painfully obvious now, of course.
Still, there's always another game. And this time, you're definitely going to think before moving that seven.