I think you aren’t wrong on the whole, it’s just that Pocket Card Jockey shows exceptional care in how the two halves are melded together, there are all kinds of little ways they influence each other. Like, the exact place the horse is relative to the center of the Comfort Zones doesn’t just determine the difficulty of the solitaire game, but even its shape, in ways that I don’t understand entirely. The 3DS version will show you the shape of the tableau of the upcoming game, and it’s possible to get tall and thin games that are quite difficult, and I’m not sure exactly what triggers them, it might have to do with how far you are on the outside of the track?

One thing I’m pretty certain of, the Switch version seems to be easier than the 3DS version. However, there is a switch in the Options menu that increases the difficulty of the opponent horses, I might end up trying that if the game continues to be fairly easy for me.