Forty Thieves Solitaire

Overview

Forty Thieves is the best known of the hard two-deck solitaires. The rules are short; the combination of them is punishing. Estimates put the win rate at roughly one game in ten, and that is with good play.

The name comes from the forty cards dealt face up to start: four in each of ten columns. Older books call it Napoleon at St Helena, and you will also find it as Big Forty, Le Cadran or Roosevelt at San Juan.

Two decks, 104 cards, eight foundations — two per suit. Nothing is hidden. The difficulty is entirely in what you are allowed to do: build down in the same suit, move one card at a time, and get one pass through the stock with no redeal.

The layout

40 cards are dealt face up across ten columns, four to each. Every one is visible, so there is no discovery here — no face-down card waiting to rescue you.

The other 64 cards form the stock, turned one at a time to the waste. Only the top waste card can be played. Above sit the eight empty foundations.

Goal

Move all 104 cards to the eight foundations, each built upward by suit from Ace to King. Two decks means two foundations per suit.

Tableau rules

• Build downward in the same suit — a 7 of Hearts goes on an 8 of Hearts, never an 8 of Clubs.
• Only the exposed card at the foot of a column may be moved.
• One card at a time. Ordered sequences cannot be picked up as a group, however neat they look.
• Any single card may fill an empty column.

That third rule is the one that hurts. A perfect same-suit run of six cards is still six separate moves, and each one needs somewhere legal to go. If the 5 of Spades you want sits under the 6 of Spades, the 6 has to find a home of its own first.

Empty columns

An empty column takes any single card, which makes it the only real workspace in the game. Most analyses agree that winning usually comes down to whether you can clear one.

Treat it as workspace, not storage. The pattern that wins games is: move an obstructing card into the space, take the card it was covering, then rebuild. Fill an empty column with a card that has nowhere to go next and you have spent your best asset for nothing.

Stock and waste

The 64-card stock turns one card at a time. Only the top of the waste is playable, to a tableau column or straight to a foundation.

There is no redeal. One pass, and what you bury in the waste is gone. This is what separates Forty Thieves from almost everything else here — Klondike and Canfield both let you go round again. Here every stock card is a decision you make once.

Strategy and tips

• Work toward an empty column. It is the single strongest thing you can do, and often the difference between a win and a stall.
• Look one card deeper. Before moving a card, check where the card underneath it could go. A move that opens a column but strands the next card is worse than not moving.
• Free the Aces and low cards. Nothing starts until the Aces are out, and a buried Ace can lock a whole suit.
• Do not send cards home reflexively. A card in the tableau may be the only same-suit destination another card has.
• Respect the waste. With one pass and no redeal, a card you skip is a card you have lost.
• Keep flexibility. Long buried chains are how positions die. Leave yourself somewhere to put things.

The winning move is often several steps from the goal: you move a card not to advance a foundation but to expose a second card, which frees a third, which empties a column, which finally gives the stock card you have been holding somewhere to land.

Controls and features

• Drag a card to a legal destination, or tap it to see the legal ones highlighted.
• Tap the stock to turn the next card to the waste.
• Use Undo to explore a different line, or New Game for a fresh deal.

If you liked Forty Thieves

Russian Solitaire is the other same-suit punisher: no stock at all, but you may move a card with everything piled on top of it — the freedom Forty Thieves denies you.

Spider is the other two-deck game here. It lets you build across suits and only restricts what can move, which is a far gentler constraint. And FreeCell shares the all-visible layout but hands you four free cells to work with.