Canfield Solitaire

Overview

Canfield — known in Britain as Demon — is a one-deck solitaire with a hard reputation and an unusual shape. A thirteen-card reserve, the demon itself, feeds four tableau columns, and the foundations do not start at Ace: one card is dealt to a foundation at the start, and whatever rank it happens to be becomes the base rank for all four.

So every deal begins differently. If the dealt card is a 6, all four foundations run 6, 7, 8 up through King, wrap to Ace, and finish at 5.

The stock deals three at a time and may be recycled without limit, which sounds generous until you notice you cannot reorder it. The card you want stays buried under the same two cards every pass. Between the queue-like reserve, the four-column tableau and the fixed stock order, plenty of deals simply cannot be won.

The deal

One standard 52-card deck, split at the start into:

• 13 cards to the reserve (the demon), face up, top card only in play.
• 1 card dealt straight to a foundation — this sets the base rank.
• 1 card to each of the four tableau columns.
• The remaining 34 cards form the stock.

You do not choose the base rank and it is not the first card you play — it is decided by the deal before you touch anything.

Goal

Send all 52 cards to the four foundations. Each is built upward by suit from the base rank, wrapping past King back to Ace, until it holds all thirteen cards of its suit.

Foundation rules

• Build upward by suit from the base rank.
• All four foundations use the same base rank.
• Ranks wrap: King is followed by Ace.

This is what makes Canfield read differently from Klondike. An Ace is not automatically precious here — if the base rank is 9, your Aces are five steps in and a 9 is the card you are hunting.

Tableau rules

• Build downward in alternating colours — a red 7 on a black 8.
• Ranks wrap the other way: an Ace can be placed on a 2, and a King on an Ace.
• Properly ordered sequences move together as a group.
• An empty column is filled automatically from the reserve whenever the reserve still has cards.

The reserve, or demon

The reserve is a queue, not a workspace. Only the top card plays, so anything underneath is locked until the cards above it are spent. You can often see exactly the card you need and be unable to reach it.

Emptying a tableau column pulls the next reserve card into the gap automatically. That is the main way through the thirteen — and it is why clearing a column in Canfield is not the free workspace it is in other solitaires. You do not get to leave the space empty.

Stock and waste

Tap the stock to turn three cards at a time onto the waste. Only the top waste card is playable.

When the stock empties you may recycle it, as often as you like — there is no redeal limit in this version. But the order never changes, so a card sitting second of three stays second of three on every pass. Unlimited redeals give you more chances at the same arrangement, not a different one.

Strategy and tips

• Work the reserve down. It is the tightest constraint on the board; cards you leave buried there are cards you may never see.
• Think before emptying a column. The gap refills from the reserve automatically, so you are trading a destination for whatever the demon hands you.
• Learn the base rank immediately. It changes which cards matter. Do not reach for Aces out of habit.
• Use the wrap. Aces onto 2s in the tableau, Kings onto Aces on the foundations — the ends of the sequence are joined in both directions.
• Do not send every legal card home. A card in the tableau may be the only destination for another.
• Count the waste in threes. Since the order is fixed, work out which pass will expose the card you need.

Where the name comes from

The game began in England as Demon Patience, and is still called Demon there. The American name comes from Richard A. Canfield, who around 1900 ran a casino at Saratoga Springs offering a gambling version: you bought a deck for $50, and were paid $5 for every card you got home. A complete clearance returned $2,600.

The arithmetic tells you how hard the game is. The house expected you to place roughly ten cards.

It is worth adding that the attribution is disputed. Canfield himself called his casino game Klondike, and some historians think Klondike, not Demon, is what was actually played there. Either way it did not last — the games ran too slowly and needed a dedicated dealer watching each one, and Canfield sold the casino in 1907 at a loss.

Controls and features

• Drag cards to legal destinations, or tap to see them highlighted.
• Tap the stock to deal three to the waste; tap again when empty to recycle.
• Use Undo to reconsider, or New Game for a fresh deal.

If you liked Canfield

Klondike is the gentler relative: foundations always start at Ace, the stock turns one card at a time, and an empty column stays empty until you choose to fill it. Forty Thieves is the harder one — two decks, build down by suit, one card at a time, and no redeal at all.