About Forty Thieves Solitaire

Forty Thieves — also called "Napoleon at St Helena" — is a two-deck patience game played with 104 cards. Forty cards are dealt face up into ten columns of four. Your job is to build eight foundations, each running up from Ace to King in a single suit. Send all 104 cards home to win.

How to play

You may move one card at a time. On the tableau, build down in the same suit — a 6♠ goes onto a 7♠. Send any Ace to a foundation, then build it up by suit to the King. The top card of the waste and the bottom card of each column are the cards you can move. An empty column can take any single card.

The stock

Tap the stock to turn cards to the waste, one at a time. The top of the waste is always in play — but there is no redeal: once the stock runs out, you finish with the cards on the table. That single pass is what makes Forty Thieves famously tough.

Is it hard?

Yes — Forty Thieves is one of the hardest popular solitaires, with a low natural win rate. That is exactly why undo here is unlimited: take any move back, explore a different line, and learn the deal. Clear one and your streak grows; your streak is saved on your device, waiting for your next session.

Forty Thieves Rules, in Full

Two 52-card decks are shuffled together. Forty cards are dealt face up into ten columns of four, and the remaining 64 form the stock. Eight foundations sit above the tableau, one for each suit in each deck, and they build up from Ace to King. On the tableau you build down in the same suit and move exactly one card per move — runs cannot be picked up as a group. The bottom card of each column and the top card of the waste are in play. An empty column accepts any single card. Turning the stock deals one card to the waste at a time, and there is no redeal once it is exhausted. Sending all 104 cards to the foundations wins the deal.

Forty Thieves Strategy — The Empty Column Is Everything

Because you can never move a run, the game gives you almost no way to reorganise the board — except an empty column. Play accordingly:

• Clear a column as early as you can. A four-card column that is nearly in order is a better target than a foundation card. Space is the resource that runs out first.
• Do not feed the foundations too fast. A 2 sent home is a 2 that can no longer catch a 3 on the tableau. Send a card up when it stops being useful below, not the moment it is legal.
• Exhaust the table before touching the stock. Every turn of the stock is one-way. Take every tableau move available first.
• Same suit, not same colour. The most common beginner mistake is playing it like Klondike. A red 6 does not go on a black 7 here.
• Undo freely. With no redeal, the deal is decided by the order you make moves in. Playing a line out and reversing it is how you find that order.

Why Forty Thieves Has Such a Low Win Rate

It is not you. Forty Thieves is genuinely one of the hardest widely-played patience games, and losing most deals is the normal experience. The single-card move rule removes the manoeuvring that makes Klondike recoverable; the same-suit build removes half the legal moves you would have with alternating colours; and the absence of a redeal removes the second chance. What is left is a game where the first dozen decisions carry most of the weight, and where a deal can be effectively lost long before it looks lost. Treating it as a puzzle to be solved with undo, rather than a hand to be gambled on, is the difference between frustrating and interesting.

Forty Thieves vs Klondike and Spider

Klondike gives you alternating-colour builds, multi-card moves and, in most versions, repeated passes through the stock. Spider gives you same-suit runs but lets you move ordered sequences and deal a fresh row when stuck. Forty Thieves gives you neither the flexible builds nor the second pass — it takes Spider's strict suit rule and Klondike's foundation goal and removes the safety net from both. If you want something you will actually clear, Golf Solitaire guarantees every deal is winnable; Scorpion Solitaire is the one-deck game with a similar bite.

Play Forty Thieves Free Online — No Download, No Account

Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for. The deal is on screen when the page loads. Your streak is stored in your browser's local storage on your own device, so it persists between visits without an account and without anything leaving the page. The free iOS and Android app adds offline play and progress across devices; the browser version is the whole game.

Does It Work on Phone and Tablet?

Yes. Ten columns are a lot for a narrow screen, so the layout scales the cards to fit rather than making you scroll sideways, and every move is a single tap. The same controls work with a mouse or trackpad on desktop. Unlimited undo is always one tap away.

More free solitaire games

Prefer a quicker or gentler game? Try Golf Solitaire, where every deal is winnable, or Scorpion Solitaire, where you build every suit down from King to Ace. All free online, no download.