Forty Thieves Solitaire

About Forty Thieves Solitaire

Forty cards, face up, in ten columns of four. You can see every one of them, and most of the time you still cannot do a thing.

Here is why. A card travels alone. Never in a run, never two at once, however neatly they happen to be stacked. It lands only on a card of its own suit, exactly one rank higher. With two decks in play that is a narrow window, and the sixty-four cards held in the stock come out one at a time onto a waste pile that is never recycled. One pass. What you turn up is what you get.

The single mercy is the empty column, which will take absolutely any card. Clearing a column is the closest thing to a lever this game offers, and a good deal of the first half is spent trying to earn one.

This is a demanding patience and it makes no secret of it. Losing is ordinary. A win is worth something precisely because the board gave you so little to work with.

The board - Two decks, 104 cards in total - 10 tableau columns of 4 cards, all face up - 8 foundations, each built up by suit from Ace to King - 64 cards in the stock, turned one at a time, no second pass - The game is won when all 104 cards reach the foundations - Ten points per card promoted, and five for a card taken off the waste onto a column

In the app Undo across the last hundred moves, so one wrong single-card decision does not cost you the evening. Hints. A tutorial with the rules in full. Statistics: games played, wins and best times. Card backs and table colours. Free to play, no sign-up, and it runs with no connection. 33 languages.

Contact: [email protected]

• ↗Forty Thieves solitaire: 104 cards, 8 foundations. Free and offline.