Reading your Card Lounge statistics: what played, won and best really count

Choose a game on Card Lounge and the panel you see before you deal shows a line such as "6 won of 20 played · best 4:12 · fewest moves 118". It looks simple, but each number has rules behind it. Knowing them helps you read your record fairly and see whether you are really improving.

One record per mode, in one browser

Each of the 13 modes keeps its own statistics: rounds played, rounds won, and for wins the best time and the fewest moves. Klondike Draw 1 and Draw 3 are separate records, and so are Spider with one, two and four suits. Before your first round in a mode, the line reads "No rounds played in this browser yet". The games page shows the same "won of played" figures next to each game.

Everything is kept only in your own browser's local storage. There is no account, so a phone and a laptop keep two separate records, and clearing your browser's site data for Card Lounge removes saved rounds and statistics. Private windows usually discard them when they are closed.

What counts as played and won

A round is added to "played" when it ends in one of three ways:

• Won: you reach the goal, such as all 52 cards on the foundations.
• Lost: the game finds that no legal move can change the position and shows "No moves left". In Higher or Lower a wrong guess ends the round. Memory Pairs has no way to lose.
• Abandoned: you start a new deal while the round is unfinished.

Switching to another game does not abandon anything. Your unfinished round is saved for that mode, and the next time you choose it the panel offers "Continue saved round".

In Blackjack every hand is a round, and a push counts as played but not won.

Best time and fewest moves

Both come only from won rounds, and they are kept separately, so your best time and your fewest moves may come from two different wins. Time is shown in minutes and seconds. The clock runs only while a round is in progress and the page is visible, and a saved round keeps its time when you continue it.

A move is one completed action: a card move, a draw, or a recycle of the stock. A few details are worth knowing:

• A hint is not a move, but Auto move makes one, and it counts.
• Undo takes the move off the count, because it brings back the earlier position together with its move total. The clock keeps running.
• Finish, which you will meet at the end of a Klondike round, counts every card it sends to the foundations.
• In Memory Pairs every card you turn is a move. The end of a round reports turns, but the statistics count cards, so a fewest-moves figure of 38 means 19 turns. The best possible is 12 turns, or 24 moves.

Worked example

Your Klondike Draw 1 line reads "6 won of 20 played", a win rate of 30%. You dislike the next layout, so you press New deal, and you do it four times in a row. Now the line reads "6 won of 24 played", or 25%. You have not lost a single game, yet your rate has dropped five points, because abandoned rounds count as played.

A few weeks later the line reads "15 won of 40 played", 37.5% overall. Compare it with your earlier note of 6 of 20: the last 20 rounds produced 9 wins, a rate of 45%. Your recent form is better than the overall figure suggests, and you can only see it because you kept the earlier numbers.

Tracking progress honestly

The statistics are a fair record, but they do not know everything. A few habits make them more useful:

1. Compare a mode with itself. A win rate in FreeCell and one in Spider four suits measure very different games, and there is no target you have to hit.
2. Take snapshots. Write down played and won every 20 rounds or so, and work out the rate for each batch, as in the example.
3. Decide before you deal. If you often redeal layouts you dislike, accept that your rate will fall, or play every deal out.
4. Note your helpers. The statistics do not record whether you used Hint, Auto move or Undo, so keep your own mark for wins made without them if that matters to you.
5. Log what is not stored. Your Golf score on a lost round, your longest TriPeaks chain and your Higher or Lower streak appear on screen, but none of them is kept in the statistics.
6. Treat replays with care. Playing the same deal number again counts like any other round, even though you have already seen part of it.

For more on using the helpers well, read Hint, Auto move and Undo, and find every control on how to play. Then deal a round of Klondike and take your first snapshot.