Forty Thieves Rules and Tips
Forty Thieves solitaire is one of the more difficult solitaire games out there, even if you play correctly you'll only win about 10% of the games you play. This guide will help though, although you must always remember that any card game has an element of luck in it.
Forty Thieves Rules
Forty Thieves is played with two standard decks and has a fairly simple set of rules. To set-up, the cards are initially are dealt in 10 columns, four cards high, all face up. Those cards are, as you can imagine, the forty thieves. The remaining 64 cards are dealt one at a time, as and when you need them into a waste pile in which you can only use the top card. The goal of the game is to create 8 foundation piles in ascending order and in their corresponding suit from Ace to King.
You can only ever move a single card and when you move a card it must be in descending order and in the same suit. For example you can move a Queen of hearts only onto a King of hearts. This rule is why the game is so hard but simple to play! When a column is empty you can move any single card onto it to start it off. You can turn over a card from the remaining cards and put them into the waste pile one at a time whenever you want to or if you can't see a move. You can only go through the waste pile once as there is no redeal.
Tips
- Empty columns are of course the most important element of this particular card game. The more empty columns the better, as they allow you to restack all the cards from one column to another column. The more empty columns, the better, as you can then move longer chains of cards together.
- Try to play lower ranked cards first, as once a higher ranked chain of cards is created it gets much harder to move later on.
- Always play from the cards in the layout first if you can rather than the waste pile. That waste pile will be waiting for you!
- The key of forty thieves is of course the planning. Keep an eye open for which cards to move based on what will be opened up underneath.
Good luck!