Montana as a puzzle: You can see all the cards at the beginning of play in Montana so you can plan how to make things work out. Doing things in the right order is important. With small decks you can often win without any redeals and it is fun to see how often you can win without any redeals.

Using smaller decks to learn strategy: The fewer cards in a suit, the easier it is to win, and the easier it is to learn the strategies that work well. It is easier to plan ahead and so you can concentrate on the techniques. Start with suits of four cards and work up as you start winning every game quickly.

Open up left-most blanks first: Always look first for a play that opens up a left-most position so you can play a 2 there.

Play to extend sequences: Next look for plays that allow you to extend an existing sequence. This is best done by looking at the first card out-of-sequence in a row. Figure out where that plays. Then figure out where the card there plays. Follow the chain until you get to a blank space which allows you to make all the plays. We call this "following a path." The advanced version of this game, Montanalyzer, will do the path bookkeeping for you and show the paths visually. This makes it easier to plan your strategy.

Extend sequences: When you cannot make any more plays to create blank spaces at the end of sequences, extend the sequences into these blank spaces.

Do not make unnecessary plays: Do not make a play to a blank space if it does not help you open up spaces that will extend sequences. Play to open up blank spaces to the right of cards in sequence but do not play the next card in sequence right away. Keep looking to extend the number of blanks where you can plays cards in sequence.

Random plays: If nothing else looks good just make a few random plays to change the layout of the cards. Then start looking for plays that open up useful blank places again.