Russian Solitaire: a game I learnt from my grandma

Gerald made an interesting post in Gone Gaming: Gaming with a Grandma.

My grandma did not often play games with me, but she taught me some solitaires. One of which she often played was Russian Solitaire, a variant of Yukon. Rules to the game as follows:

Setup

A standard 52 card deck is used. 28 cards are first dealt in 7 columns. The first column has 1 card, the second has 2, and so on. The last card in each column is dealt face up. Then, 4 cards are dealt to each of the latter 6 columns.

The Game

The goal is to remove all the cards from the columns into 4 "foundation" piles, starting from Aces and ending with Kings. A face-up card, and all the cards covering it, may be moved to another column when the top-most card in the destination column is in sequence and of the same suit.



If a face-down card is exposed as a result, it is immediately turned over.


Whenever the lowest card of any suit is exposed, you remove it and they form the "foundation piles".
When a column is emptied, you may remove part of another column to create a new column, exposing another card. In the standard Russian Solitaire, only Kings may start a column. In my grandma's variant, you may start a column with any card, which makes the game a little bit easier, but still more difficult than the standard Yukon or Klondike.

Game end

You win when you empty all 7 columns by sorting them into 4 suits; you lose when you have no legal play before emptying the columns.